The tree-stuck Fate-speaker
TLDR:
Sitting in a tree
spitting Destiny.
Poor phraseology
ends in tragedy
Summary
This post is about:
- tree weddings
- the plumbing of the wyrd-wide web
- an illusory goddess in an empty bed
- the regency of an Elden Lord; and
- why word-choice matters when decreeing Fate.
Along the way, I'll try to provide evidence to support the following theories:
- Marika never leaves the Erdtree
- Sites of Grace are part of Marika's intercom system
- Radagon visits the Queen's Bedchamber
- the Elden Lord governs The Lands Between as Marika's regent
- Marika's Spoken Words dictate Fate; and
- Marika accidentally jinxed herself.
Empyreans are enshrined/entombed/enthroned in their tree
Since it was thousands of years ago, there's very little solid evidence of what Marika's life might have been like before the Elden Ring was shattered.
- We know that she issued her 'Spoken Words' at Sites of Grace.
- We know that the Queen's Bedchamber existed.
- We know that "Marika is Radagon". With these small clues, we reasonably assume that:
- she had a physical body (which was sometimes disguised as her alternate persona: Radagon) which required sleep;
- she journeyed through The Lands Between, uttering her 'Spoken Words' at Sites of Grace; and
- she rested in the Queen's Bedchamber. But what if these assumptions are wrong?
Tree weddings
The idea that she traveled to the Sites of Grace where we find her Spoken Words is notable because I believe that, unless someone violently cuts them out,
every single Empyrean we encounter was destined to spend the last part of their lives stuck inside a tree*.*
The only instance where this didn't happen is Ranni, who abandoned her body on the Night of the Black Knives.
Let's look at the examples.
Shaman Grandmother and her tree
First, we have the Shaman Grandmother, a (probable) Empyrean whose body we find entombed/enshrined in her tree in Shaman Village.
Roots growing to and from her body.
The reason I suspect she's an Empyrean is because she's a Shaman who is associated with a tree, just like Marika, who clearly held her in high regard. In fact, the Shaman Grandmother isn't only associated with her tree, there are roots physically connecting the two together.
This physical linking between a (possible) Empyrean and their tree made even more evident in the case of Miquella.
Miquella and the Haligtree
The tree-woman at the heart of the Haligtree and Greenseers wedded to Weirwood trees.
The Empyrean Miquella was physically connected the Haligtree before Mogh forcefully extracted him.
The image of the giant wooden figure at the Haligtree is striking like the image of 'Greenseers' physically and permanently connected to weirwood trees in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.
In that series, Greenseers are spiritually gifted individuals who are "wedded" to magical, blood-drinking trees through roots which grow into their bodies. By enduring this process, Greenseers (who are physically frail) trade their short-lived, mortal bodies and physical freedom for the immortal, wooden bodies of the weirwood trees and can send their minds to wherever the trees' the root network extends.
Note: It's been theorized by some readers of that series that the weirwood root network stretches across entire continents.
The parallels between the Miquella and his Haligtree and Greenseers and weirwood trees leads me to ask the question:
"Do we know that Miquella wasn't supposed to stay inside the Haligtree permanently or are we just assuming that his time in the cocoon was temporary?"
The current consensus seems to be that Miquella grew the Haligtree as part of a scheme cure his curse of eternal youth and that he would eventually emerge fully-grown from his cocoon like a butterfly.
There are some things which causes me to be skeptical about this idea. For example:
- There's nothing to suggest that Miquella ever wanted his 'curse' to be cured. His objectives seem to be to cure Malenia, to have Radahn as his consort and to create a kinder world. His 'curse' wasn't an impediment to any of these goals.
- Even with his curse, he's generally considered to be the strongest of the Empyreans.
- Miquella isn't, symbolically, a caterpillar which needed to mature into a butterfly. Miquella already was a butterfly: the eternally youthful Nascent Butterfly.
Nascent Butterfly item description:
"An arcane butterfly with translucent wings.
Material used for crafting items.
Exceedingly rare to find.
This butterfly appears as if it's just emerged from its cocoon for its entire life."
- Not only does Miquella's "cocoon" never hatch, none of the similarly webbed cocoons we find throughout Elphael ever hatch either. And "cocooned" albanaurics certainly weren't "cursed" with eternal youth as Miquella was.
Maybe, Miquella's cocoon (embedded in the giant, tree-figure permanently connected to the Haligtree like a Greenseer) was Miquella's 'final form'.
We know he watered the Haligtree with his own blood.
Maybe the plan wasn't to just share a few drops of it.
Maybe it was to transfer all of his blood into the tree-giant body and what we call a 'cocoon' is merely his tool to do so.
Note: This would certainly explain why the body we find inside the cocoon is "withered" and Mogh was obsessed with pouring an endless quantity of blood into it.
If Miquella had been transferring all his blood from his old body to the new, larger one, and Mogh was attempting to revive his withered husk, then a massive blood transfusion makes sense.
The withered (drained) husk in its 'cocoon'.
If Mogh hadn't intervened, maybe Miquella would now be a giant, tree-god permanently connected to the Haligtree...
The next 'Empyrean' we're examining makes the permanent nature of the connection between an Empyrean and their tree even more obvious: St. Trina, the divested aspect of Miquella.
St. Trina
An 'aspect' of an Empyrean and her tree.
St. Trina's lower half is completely missing.
Not only can she never leave her 'tree', but it also appears to be the only thing keeping her alive as her corpse has fallen from it when we find it.
For her, at least, separation from her 'tree' means death.
Finally, we'll examine the Malenia to see whether my theoretical link between Empyreans and their tree holds true.
Malenia and her tree
We know (from the announcement trailer) that Malenia 'bloomed' during her fight with Radahn, transforming herself into a plant and creating the hell-scape which Caelid is today.
Since the site of their fight looks very much like the battlefield we slay Radahn, it's reasonable to assume that both fights happened at the same area.
What's odd, however, is that we don't find an Aeonia Bloom in Radahn's arena.
Also, looking at the map of Caelid also reveals that Radahn's arena does not appear to be the epicenter of the Scarlett Rot.
The epicenter is the Heart of Aeonia.
I believe that:
- the Heart of Aeonia which was the actual spot where Malenia bloomed, not Radahn's arena and
- the reason it no longer resembles the battlefield we see in the trailer is because of the transformational nature of the Rot.
Note: For this to be correct, Radahn (or, more likely, his horse Leonard) would have needed to have wandered away from the epicentre of the Rot in the intervening five thousand years, which doesn't seem to be an unreasonable scenario.
At this point the theory becomes more conjectural.
"What if the giant tree at the Heart of Aeonia is Malenia's tree*?"*
The tree at the Heart of Aeonia.
If the Heart of Aeonia tree grew from Malenia's transformed body, then several later details suddenly fit together.
- it explains why Millicent and her sisters consider themselves to be Malenia's daughters or kin: they emerged as the buds of the Malenia's tree; and
- it explains why we find Miquella's Needle right next to it: it's the exact spot Malenia discarded it to bloom.
This idea is further supported by the Aeonian Spirt, who stands staring into the Heart of Aeonia and has the following dialogue.
"...
Sublime, I tell you.
The very first flower of Aeonia bloomed on this very spot.
Malenia, may you blossom into a goddess."
Of course, if the tree is Malenia's tree, then it opens the possibility that she was still 'blooming' and connected to it when Finlay recovered her and carried her to the Haligtree.
Readers might notice the parallels between this version of events and the story of Miquella's abduction by Mogh.
- In both stories, an Empyrean grows a giant tree that they've embedded themselves in.
- In both stories, someone enters the tree, cuts the Empyrean free and takes them away.
The irony, of course, is that one of the stories is about an 'abduction' while the other is about a 'rescue'.
But there's another parallel which, to my mind, really strengthens this version of events from a story-telling perspective.
Did you know that, on the map, the Heart of Aeonia is located almost directly above Moghwyn Palace?
If we call the Heart of Aeonia/Moghwyn Palace "Point A" and the Haligtree "Point B", this means that, at roughly the same time:
- Finlay was carrying Malenia from 'Point A' to 'Point B';
- Mogh was carrying Miquella from 'Point B' to 'Point A'.
The irony that the two twins were both involuntarily being brought to each other's location, causing them to never be reunited is, to my mind, extremely poetic.
One twin was carried home. The other was carried away.
Of course, this parallel doesn't prove anything, but it does hint that FromSoft was trying to tell us something when they chose the location of both the Heart of Aeonia and Moghwyn Palace.
There's one last clue which hints that Malenia was cut from her tree.
There's an (empty) Scarlet Aeonia bloom located just before we enter the heart of the Haligtree to fight her.
This leads me to ask:
"What if Malenia was in her (contagious) flower form when Finlay was carrying her to the Haligtree and she only reverted to her demigod form once she was close enough to its influence?"
Cleanrot Knight Finlay Ashes item description:
"Legendary ashen remains.
Use to summon the spirit of the Cleanrot Knight Finlay.
Finlay was one of the few survivors of the Battle of Aeonia, who in an unimaginable act of heroism carried the slumbering demigod Malenia all the way back to the Haligtree.
She managed the feat alone, fending off all manner of foes along the way."
Of course, if Finlay was carrying Malenia's flower to the Haligtree, this suggests that:
the flower needed to be physically cut from the tree at the Heart of Aeonia and that, if Malenia hadn't been physically cut from her tree she would have remained inside her tree forever, just like the other Empyreans*.*
Back to the main theory.
Reviewing the fates of these four Empyreans (the Shaman Grandmother, Miquella, St. Trina and Malenia) and their trees suggest that:
- Every Empyrean grows a tree at some point in their lives.
- An Empyrean is physically connected to their tree, like a Greenseer.
- An Empyrean spends the rest of their lives permanently enshrined/entombed inside their tree unless someone violently cuts them out of it.
Marika was also enshrined/entombed/enthroned
The next question is:
"Does this trends also apply to Marika: i.e., is Marika permanently enshrined/entombed inside the Erdtree?"
I believe the answer is 'yes' and my evidence for this is:
- the seal at the entrance of the Erdtree; and
- the placement of the thrones in front of the Erdtree entrance;
- the Sites of Grace and the Spoken Words of Marika; and
- the Queen's Bedchamber.
We'll now examine each piece of evidence and see how they support this conclusion.
The seal
The broken mural and the throne of the Elden Lord.
The meaning of giant stone mural we find at the entrance of the Erdtree has been the topic of endless speculation.
Something which has been less speculated on is the question of what the mural physically is.
I believe that the mural is more than just decoration, I believe that it's actually a giant stone seal blocking all passage to and from the Erdtree.
Consider what we can observe.
We know it can't be a door as there aren't any hinges which would allow it to swing open.
It's also unlikely to be a stone slab that's raised and lowered to control passage. If it was, the damage we see to the bottom of the slab would have caused the stone to fall further down and blocking passage.
The final possibility, that there used to be a small passage-way through the bottom of the seal, is also unlikely, as the damage to the bottom edge of the seal looks very much like someone smashed it open to gain entry which, in turn, implies that the damage was necessary.
It, therefore, appears likely that the entrance of the Erdtree had been sealed like a tomb and that Marika was sealed inside permanently.
The placement of thrones
Next: consider how the thrones in front of the Erdtree are arranged.
The thrones of the demigods are in a line facing the throne of the Elden Lord, which is on the same level and not notably fancier.
The seated demigods would see the glowing Erdtree looming behind the seated Elden Lord.
What can we infer from this piece of environmental storytelling?
Firstly, the fact that the Elden Lord's throne is on the same level as those of the demigods, and is not notably fancier, suggests that an Elden Lord are (nominally) at or near the 'same level' as the demigods.
The Elden Lord has greater authority, yes, but it appears to be more of a 'first amongst equals' arrangement rather than a king commanding their subjects.
However, the fact that the Elden Lord is backed by the Erdtree looming behind him suggests that, while he's on the 'same level', everything he says has the Erdtree's (and, therefore, Marika's) backing.
Note: Incidentally, the placement of the Elden Lord's throne would also make it awkward for anyone to enter or leave the Erdtree, since they'd need to walk behind the Elden Lord's back.
This, in turn, makes the existence of a now-destroyed passageway at the bottom of the seal slightly less plausible.
Secondly, another notable feature is the fact that Marika herself doesn't seem to get a throne of her own.
It's possible that Marika takes the Elden Lord's throne when she's present (leaving him to stand or kneel next to it) but the environmental storytelling suggests otherwise.
Unlike the Elden Lord, Marika isn't on the 'same level' as the demigods: she's more important than them in every way. If Marika had a throne it should (by all conventions of environmental storytelling) be larger, fancier and raised higher than those of the demigods.
And, if you believe that Marika is enshrined/entombed/enthroned in the the Erdtree, that's exactly the case.
Spoken Words of Marika
The next piece of evidence we're examining is interesting because, at first glance, it seems to suggest that Marika isn't stuck inside her tree. These are the Spoken Words of Marika which Melina retrieves from various Sites of Grace.
Listening to them gives us the impression that she'd spoken to her audience at the corresponding Sites which, in turn, implies that she was physically present when she'd uttered them.
However, I believe that looking at the true nature of Sites of Grace will show us that Spoken Words is evidence that Marika wasn't physically present at a Site and, instead, was inside the Erdtree when they were uttered.
For instance, consider a typical Site of Grace.
While they initially look like small campfires, a closer inspection reveals that:
- the 'flames' are, instead, glowing plumes of Grace; and
- the pile of 'sticks' at their base are, instead, the tips of tree roots emerging from the ground.
Sites of Grace aren't campfires. instead, they're sites where Grace is flowing out of the tips of tree roots.
And, since the Erdtree is the only tree we know which has Grace flowing through its roots, it's reasonable to believe that the Sites of Grace are sites where the roots of the Erdtree poke out of the ground. In turn, this means that:
every single Site of Grace is part of a vast network of roots that allows Grace to flow from the Erdtree throughout The Lands Between and the Realm of Shadow.
Something which supports this idea is the Tarnished's ability to fast-travel from one Site of Grace to another.
How else would this be possible if Sites of Grace weren't interconnected in some fashion?
Of course, if the Erdtree's roots transports Grace from its trunk to the tips of its roots, this would mean that Marika doesn't need to be physically present at a Site of Grace to utter her Spoken Words.
Sites of Grace can serve as Marika's 'intercom system'.
Note: Incidentally, Greenseers in 'A Song of Ice and Fire' are also theorized to have a continent-spanning intercom system, a network of Weirwood roots which they can use to send messages and parts of their souls everywhere the roots can reach.
1The potential parallels are quite clear.
We have two more clues to support this idea.
Firstly, consider the fact that Melina can retrieve echoes of Marika's Spoken Words at all.
Thousands of years have passed when the Words were initially uttered but a record of them must have, somehow, been retained.
Melina calls them "echoes", but wouldn't it be more accurate to consider them to be 'recordings*'*?
Like some communication networks, Sites of Grace are somehow able to 'record' the Spoken Words which have been sent through them.
Secondly, consider the following two Spoken Words:
The first one, at the Third Church of Marika, says:
"My Lord, and thy warriors.
I divest each of thee of thy grace.
With thine eyes dimmed, ye will be driven from the Lands Between.
Ye will wage war in a land afar, where ye will live, and die."
The second one, at the Church of Pilgrimage, says:
"Then, after thy death,
I will give back what I once claimed.
Return to the Lands Between, wage war,
and brandish the Elden Ring.
Grow strong in the face of death.
Warriors of my lord, Lord Godfrey."
When you put the two Spoken Words together, there's a fairly strong argument that the two Spoken Words are two halves of the same message.
This would mean that either:
- Marika started her speech at the Third Church of Marika
- stopped
- traveled with her audience to the Church of Pilgrimage, and
- then finished her speech;
or
- Marika (inside the Erdtree) spoke through both Sites of Grace at the same time, with parts of her full speech saved at both Churches.
The second explanation seems more plausible.
Of course, if she did speak at both Sites at the same time, having an inter-com system like a network of roots through which you would send messages from inside the Erdtree would allow her to do so.
Putting everything we've discussed about Sites of Grace and Spoken Words together, I believe that:
- each Site of Grace is a site where Marika doesn't need to be physical present to communicate; and
- each 'recording' of Spoken Words sent through a Site of Grace is evidence which indicates that Marika was sending her message from somewhere else (most likely from inside her tree) at the time.
Marika does not need to be physically present to utter her Spoken Words.
The continent-wide distribution of Sites of Grace means that she can rule The Lands Between perfectly fine while enshrined/entombed/enthroned inside the Erdtree.
Yggdrasil the world-tree and the Fate-weaving Norns
The final piece of evidence we'll be looking at to support the idea that Marika is permanently enshrined/entombed/enthroned inside the Erdtree is the Queen's Bedchamber.
The Queen's Bedchamber
A quick reminder of a lesson which those which are familiar with previous FromSoft games will already know:
The goddess lying in the giant bed is a lie.
At first glance, the very existence of the Queen's Bedchamber implies that Marika wasn't stuck inside the Erdtree. After all, why would she have a bedroom if she couldn't sleep in it?
However, I believe that looking at and understanding the details of the Queen's Bedchamber will show that she never stepped foot inside the room.
I believe that the Queen's Bedchamber is meant to directly evoke the idea of the 'god's bedchamber'**, which existed in ancient Mesopotamian traditions.
A god's bedchamber
Note: The following description is an extremely simplified summary of the writings of Herodotus (generally considered the first historian in the western world).
Ancient Mesopotamians believed that gods had many of the same physical needs and desires as mortals and had created humanity to tend to those needs.
To this end, they built vast stepped temples we now call 'ziggurats', man-made mountains that were the tallest structures in their cities.
And, at the very top of the ziggurats, they built a house for the god that ruled the city.
The house contained everything a god would need to live in comfort. Most importantly, they held the 'god's bedchamber', which was the place where the god slept and where a sacred marriage ritual would take place.
The high priest would select a woman to become the consort of the city's god. She would be ritually cleansed, taken to the god's bedchamber, and lock inside for the night.
It was believed that the god would descend from the sky and lay with the consort, consummating the sacred marriage.
Note: Herodotus himself was deeply skeptical of the idea.
Like the god's bedchamber, the Queen's Bedchamber is located at the top of the tallest man-made structure in Leyndell.
Additionally, there are several notable features about the 'bed' in the Queen's Bedchamber which should be noted.
Firstly, the giant stone 'bed' looks extremely uncomfortable to sleep in, especially because there doesn't appear to be pillows or cushions.
Secondly, I wouldn't be the first to note how much the giant stone bed resembles the giant stone sundials scattered throughout The Lands Between.
Collecting and concentrating celestial light.
The function of these sundials (star-dials?) is indicated by the presence of the Starlight Shards (i.e., solidified shards of starlight) which we can collect from them: they seem to have the ability to collect starlight and concentrate them into shards.
They also somewhat resemble satellite dishes which, in this case, would be receiving signals from the stars.
The reason this relates to the giant stone 'bed' in the Queen's Bedchamber is because there's a circular hole in the ceiling directly above it, which causes it to be bathed in a stream of light from the Erdtree.
If the sundials can collect and concentrate light and also resemble satellite dishes receiving signals, is it possible that the 'bed' does the same thing, receiving and concentrating the Erdtree's light?
This is wild speculation, of course, but it seems to me that whoever occupies the Queen's Bedchamber:
- at the Site of Grace nearest to the Erdtree;
- in the tallest building in Leyndell; and
- with what looks very much like a light-concentrating satellite dish,
would have a very good claim knowing the will of Marika, the god inside the tree.
And, just like the god's bedchamber of ancient Mesopotamia, the one who occupies the Queens' Bedchamber would be her consort, Radagon.
We know this because the Queen's Bedchamber has a Site of Grace which still holds a recording of a message sent from Marika to Radagon.
The presence of a recorded message addressed to Radagon raises the possibility that the room functioned more as Radagon's point of contact with Marika than an actual bedchamber.
The echo of her Spoken Words goes:
"O Radagon.
Leal hound of the Golden Order.
Thou'rt yet to become me.
Thou'rt yet to become a god.
Come. Let us be shattered, both."
Together, this tells us several things:
- Firstly, it tells us that Marika likely didn't occupy the room. After all, why would she need to send Spoken Words into her own bedroom?
- Secondly, it tells us that Marika wasn't in the room when she uttered her Spoken Words to Radagon.
- Finally, it tells us that Radagon was in the room when the Spoken Words were uttered.
In conclusion:
Just like almost ever other Empyrean, there are several clues which indicates that Marika is enshrined/entombed/enthroned inside the Erdtree and only interacted with the outside world by sending her Spoken Words through the Sites of Grace.
The hidden hand of the Elden Lord
If Marika was stuck sending messages from inside her tree, how active a role did she play in governing The Lands Between?
I suspect she played a symbolic or spiritual role, rather than being actively involved in day-to-day ruling of her kingdom.
All the evidence we have suggests that her political presence was surprisingly indirect, either through Spoken Echoes, churches or the multiple images of her depicted in talismans, icons and statues.
Indeed, the great number of statues of Marika almost seem to suggest that her subjects had to be regularly reminded of what she looks like, which doesn't seem to fit the image of a god who'd actively ruled from the capital or spoke regularly.
The fact that:
- echoes of only seven Spoken Words can be encountered by the Tarnished in their journey;
- all seven echoes seem to have been uttered at pivotal points of the history of the Golden Order; and
- about half of the echoes are found at churches,
suggests that:
- Spoken Words were rarely issued and only at significant historical moments; and
- there was a tendency either for Marika to issue her Spoken Words at churches or for churches to be built around Sites of Grace were Spoken Words had been issued.
Contrast Marika's relative lack of participation in day-to-day affairs with Radagon, who had an active military history, a diplomatically significant marriage, and held court with the demigods in front of the Erdtree and almost no confirmed statues of him as Elden Lord.
If Marika was enshrined in the Erdtree, then her more passive role would have required her Elden Lord to rule in her stead as her regent.
After all, who could have better claim of knowing the will of the god within the tree than her King Consort, who had access to the Queen's Bedchamber containing both the Site of Grace closest to the Erdtree and a 'bed' shaped like:
- a sundial for capturing the Erdtree's light; or
- a satellite dish for receiving signals?
The Elden Lord is Marika's regent.
In most endings, the Tarnished becomes her regent, too.
Note: Many of you would have read the previous line and rolled your eyes at how obvious that was.
Hopefully the rest of this post makes the read worth it.
What this means for the lore is that (unless we have Marika's Spoken Words to prove that the order came directly from her) at least some of the orders which were given in her name were given by an Elden Lord claiming to speak with her Voice.
So, if you believe that Marika:
- ordered the Night of the Black Knives; or
- ordered that Godwyn's un-dying, Death Blight infected body be grafted to the roots of the Erdtree,
it's possible that Radagon was the one who gave these orders.
Two last things to touch on before we end this post.
Marika's Spoken Words are decrees of Fate
Although most of the intended audience to Marika's Spoken Words were her loyal followers, at least one of them almost certainly hated her: the last fire giant.
Given what was done to his people, he has no reason at all to obey her.
And yet, thousands of years after Marika's Spoken Words, he's still tending to the fire as she commanded.
What force is compelling him to comply?
Has Marika somehow placed a curse on him off-screen?
I believe that FromSoft has given us all the pieces we need to work out the answer.
I believe that Marika's Spoken Words aren't just words, they're decrees of Fate, binding the Fire Giant to tend the Flame of Ruin until death.
To reach this conclusion, we'll need to consider:
- what Marika is the god of
- the original Japanese name for Marika's "Spoken Words" and
- Norse myths about Fate and the worldtree.
The final piece of evidence we'll be looking at to support the idea that Marika is permanently stuck inside the Erdtree is the Queen's Bedchamber.
The god of Fate
Firstly, Marika's godhood springs from the fact that she is the vessel of the Elden Ring, the metaphysical manifestation of Fate itself ("that which commanded the very stars").
'Spirit-speech'
Secondly, the original Japanese name for Marika's "Spoken Words" is "kotodama", something which means significantly more than just simply 'words.
"Koto" ( "word" or "speech") and "dama" ("soul" or "spirit") are combined in the word 'kotodama', which means something like "soul-words" or "spirit-speech".
It relates to the Japanese belief that spoken words have the power to subtly shape both the world and the fortunes of both the speaker and those being addressed.
The main difference between regular speech and 'kotodama' is a matter of degree rather than inherent quality: 'kotodama' are words which are either spoken with greater spirit or empowered by greater intention.
This can often be in the form of unbreakable oaths, commands by a powerful kami or the giving of revelation.
When powerful kami issues a 'kotodama', reality itself bends to accommodate it.
All this is to say that 'kotodama', Spoken Words are powerful and I believe that:
the Spoken Words of Marika, the god of Fate herself, are decrees of a person's Fate*.*
That is why the Fire Giant still follows Marika's Spoken Words: it's literally his Fate to do so.
Note: When you combine this with the earlier idea above about how Marika sends her Spoken Words through Sites of Grace, this also accords surprisingly well with the (popular, modern understanding of) ancient Norse belief that the Norns send the Fates they weave for gods and mortals through the roots and branches of world-tree to their intended target.
So why is this significant?
Firstly, it gives us clues as to how Marika ruled The Lands Between.
By decreeing the Fates of both her servants and her enemies, Marika could 'order' her realm to her liking and while leaving the day-to-day governance of The Lands Between to her Elden Lord and the demigods.
Secondly, I believe that the entire reason the Tarnished returned to The Lands Between and keeps being resurrected is because they received one of these decrees of Fate and not because Marika is actively resurrecting them.
Consider again, the Spoken Words at the Church of Pilgrimage:
"Then, after thy death,
I will give back what I once claimed.
Return to the Lands Between, wage war,
and brandish the Elden Ring.
Grow strong in the face of death.
Warriors of my lord, Lord Godfrey."
Although the Spoken Words appear to be both a command and a promise, if we consider them asdecrees of Fate, (i.e., something which must definitely happen) then this can explain everything about the Tarnished because the exact wording she uses becomes vitally important.
Consider the following parts of the Spoken Words:
"Then, after thy death... Return to the Lands Between..."
If they are a decree of Fate, these words operate as a logic-gate (IF 'X' happens THEN do 'Y').
IF (the Tarnished dies) THEN (return the to The Lands Between).
And here's the tricky bit.
The trigger for the action is "IF (the Tarnished dies)".
The Spoken Words didn't specify that the Tarnished's Fate was to return to The Lands Between after the first time they die; the Tarnished's Fate was to return after every time they die.
This, I believe, is why the Tarnished can resurrect as many times as it takes to brandish the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord.
It's unclear whether Marika meant this to happen at all.
Which brings us to the last part of this post.
Thou'rt yet...
The Spoken Words recovered in the Queen's Bedchamber Site of Grace may well be the ones that doomed The Lands Between.
"O Radagon.
Leal hound of the Golden Order.
Thou'rt yet to become me.
Thou'rt yet to become a god.
Come. Let us be shattered, both."
From its content we can assume that:
- Marika is addressing Radagon
- Radagon has not succeeded in becoming Marika; and
- Radagon has not succeed in becoming a God.
We can't be sure of the tone or intent of Marika's words but, given the fact that she's calling him a dog of the Golden Order (something that becomes blatantly insulting in the original Japanese), we can assume that her Spoken Words were uttered:
- in anger or derision
- to gloat over his failure, and/or
- to threaten him with mutual destruction if he was successful.
But pay attention to her exact words:
"...Thou'rt YET to become me.
Thou'rt YET to become a god..."
If the preceding theory is correct, then Marika's choice of wording become darkly ironic.
By declaring that Radagon had 'yet' to become her, her Spoken Words, her decree of Fate, implied that it was only a matter of time until he succeeded.
By her own Spoken Words, spoken in anger, Marika may have transformed his current failure into his inevitable future success.
Marika may have doomed both herself and the world with careless phrasing.
[20 MARIKA AND RADAGON]
Postscript
If you've reached this point: thanks very much for reading. I know this has been a long, meandering journey, but I hope you picked up some interesting insights along the way.
This post was written primarily to set the groundwork for the theory that I actually wanted to write about.
Although it's only a small part of this post, the important part which I needed to establish for my next post is that:
- almost no one in The Lands Between has ever met Marika in the flesh; and
- 'King Consort' Radagon acted as her regent.
If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy some of my other Elden Ring theories below:
Posted Aug 14, 2026, 6:05 AM UTC