My Theory on whats going on in this game[Spoilers]
!So, for everyone who has beat the game, you've found out that Marika is Radagon. The real question is who is Radagon and where did he come from?
Going down the rabbit hole of lore this game has, I first noticed something odd that took me a while to realize. Alecto, ringleader of the black knife, is the same Alecto from greek/roman myth. She is part of the Furies (Any Hades fans out there). Now, the Furies were said to be born from the primordial god Nyx(Also known as Nox/Nok in Roman mythology). Nox is the primordial god born from Chaos. There are also more primordial gods. I think the entire point of Rannis quest is to show you that she has discovered Nox.
Now back to Radagon. In Orphic cosmogony, Phanes is often equated with Eros or Mithras, and has been depicted as a deity emerging from a cosmic egg, entwined with a serpent. He had a helmet and had broad, golden wings. He is tbe Deity of precreation and life, and the God of light. He is also known to be HERMAPHRODITIC. At some point, Radagon split his female and male side, creating marika, possibly using the crucible of life. He came to life before the 6 Gods of Roman mythology.
My theory is that the Amber Egg that Radagon leaves Renalla is actually the same cosmic egg he is born from. Ranni discovers this and also discovers Nox, the goddess of Night, the real wife of Radagon/phanes(supposed sister or wife).
I believe the reason Ranni conspires Godwyns murder is because he is next in line to become the leader of the Golden Order. However, the only part of the human that is said to be divine is your soul, and your body is holding your freedom of divinity down. So thats why she leaves Godwyn with no soul, and why she has no body. Shes become part of the celestial divinity.
Alot of the game seems to be rooted in roman orphic mythology and the Roman Empires reign during the age of Antiquity, when Christianity became the main religion of the Roman Empire.
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology and the Age of/Late Antiquity, particularly the Works and Days of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages, Gold being the first and the one during which the Golden Race lived. After the end of the first age was the Silver, then the Bronze, after this the Heroic age, with the fifth and current age being Iron. Elden Ring is similiar in that you are ushering in a New Age of life post Late Antiquity, thats why all the ending Ages of.
Sorry for the long post, just think the lore behind the game is fascinating<!
Posted Mar 23, 2022, 3:54 PM UTC
Like your write up. The only thing I have to say is the black knives serves the two fingers.
Yes ranni stole the the rune of death. She did it to become a truly immortal being not to kill. After she has used a partial piece of the rune of death to escape death the rune was stolen from her by the leader of the black knives.
I do not think she willingly gave the rune to them. For one she only had a partial piece of the rune. For two they were already targeting her for assassination. Three they work for the fingers.
If anything the fingers planned the assassination and made it look like ranni did it. Sure if ranni wouldn't have stole the rune then none of that would've happened.
Ranni "stole" half of the rune. You have to perform a ritual to obtain it. You get the half back from her body on her divine tower from her dead body. She has one half. The other half is in Godwyn. The end of Fias quest has you mending the Death Rune. They both have the symbol for the death rune on their dead bodies. The ritual deals with killing the Hallowbrand spirit deers and killing them in order to gain the brand of the death rune(Fias quest again)
Ds and Fias quest intertwine because Ds weathered dagger is used to kill Godwyn(item description is clear). Fia tells you to give it back to its owner. Now the interesting part about D is, he has a twin who is never in the same room and they never speak, but they are two bodies sharing one soul, and can plan accordingly. I think Ranni was in on the plot. D says he knows who it belongs to(and we find out its tiche, daughter of alecto, from her summon ash description). I dont think the Two Fingers serve the Greater Will, they serve Marika/Radagon and the Erdtree is a false ideal. If you go to Rannis tower you can see there is no erdtree in the fog, just a giant broken Great Tree. Also known as The World Tree in roman mythology.
Ranni died on her tower alone, and she stole the half that allows her to live purely as a soul, becoming the ultimate in divinty.
I don't buy she was in on the assassination.
From my understanding and interpretation of lore. She was simplying trying to do what she wanted to do. She knew others had similar plans but she didn't concern herself with them.
I don't really care about the greater will bit. My point simply was. Black knives work for two fingers and fingers obviously wanted to get back at marika for what she did.
You have to do Blaidds quest to understand Rannis story.
Towards the end of Ranni’s story, when Blaidd is in the evergaol Iji tells you that Blaidd was given to Ranni by the two fingers as a failsafe. He’s essentially a sleeper agent and he doesn’t even know it. Should Ranni do anything that would jeopardize the Golden Order, Blaidd will lose control of his own body and try to stop her by any means. It’s possible that the Black Knife assassins were trying to stop him after he’d already lost his mind, and thus they weren’t on the same side as him anymore. But they murder him.
Zero reason the black knife assasins would care if he killed Ranni then. Ranni is on the Night Gods side, and so are the black knife assassins, who are part of an ancient race that predates the erdtree(Noks civilization)
I have done his quest I know all this. Still don't buy it. There are multiple sources claiming black knives work for the fingers.
Also ranni didn't have a physical at the time of the death.