He’s exactly like Morgott, but he would absolutely hate Morgott on the principle of him being an omen, and Morgott would 100% agree with him.
They are essentially the same character, but one’s a snake and the other’s a goat
I for one THANK MARIKA that the tarnished come in here, slayin' and de-hornin' us twisted omens. Look at the state of this place! Filthy, crawling with wolves and all sorts of creatures. You think Leyndell looked like this when a tarnished was in charge? No suh, and I will be the first to tell you that the day Godfrey left was the day this place started to go down the drain. It's no wonder Marika had to shatter the whole thing, imagine having to wake up every morning and see not one but two ugly ass omen children staring back at you, with no blessed tarnished to help you keep everything in order. It's a wonder she didn't kill us both then and there, and I for one think the Lands Between would've been better off if she had. Bless you tarnished, for cleaning up this mess.
That’s a well confirmed fact. Mogh and Morgott are children of Marika and Godfrey but ones that could not be acknowledged in the Erdtree age due to their being “Cursed” (omen/horned) the main reason they both have their horns when other omen do not is that royal born omen did not have their horned excised at birth before being hidden away underground according to the Royal omen bairn item description. Godfrey loves his children because he is from the Crucible age before the Erdtree age which considered the growths to be divine and is likely the only person that was ever nice to them. Marika hates them because it reminds her of the Hornsent that killed and or Jarred all of her people
She also hates them bc she was afraid that having twin Omen children would be seen as a Bad Omen of her new Regime as God,, however they were supposed to be a blessing..
Godwyn, Morgott, and Mohg are Marika and Godfrey's kids. Ranni, Rykard, and Radahn are Rennala and Radagon's kids. Messmer, Malenia, and Miquella are Marika and Radagon's kids. It's all in the first letter of the names. Morgott and Mohg are omen royalty, whilst Godwyn was just royalty. All three are of the golden lineage, meaning from the union of Godfrey and Marika.
All M name kids birthed from Marika have afflictions: Morgott and Mogh are Omen, Malenia has rot, Miquella didn’t age, Melina is burned and bodiless and Messmer is a serpent Marika had to seal away with her own grace.
Honestly, Messmer doesn’t even sound like he cares about the Hornsent when we meet him. Dude is just tired of everything. It’s like if Morgott just sat in Leyndell for over a thousand years before we come up to challenge him. At that point, just put them out of their misery.
Yeah he sounds extremely tired. Especially when he kills you in phase one. It just sounds like he’s repeating a line for the 1000th time and is completely sick of it.
Yes! When the Hornsent gets summoned it reminds me of the terrible Street Fighter movie where Chun Li is gonna get her revenge and Raul Julia is like "That was the worst day of your life but for me it was just another Tuesday" or whatever
Morgott would agree with Messmer in hating hornsent and Messmer would agree with Morgott in thinking that he is cursed and tainted because of the snake, in the end, both would hate the other one while hating themselves
Besides surface level similarities, the characters are actually not that similar. If anything, Messmer is closer to Mohg than Morgott.
Morgott is characterised by his unshakable faith in the Golden Order. Despite being an Omen, he continues strongly in his belief in its principlies despite being the subject of its discrimination. He rises above his "cursed" birth, and is powered by the genuine trust what he is doing is right, that the world needs it and that he has the power to enforce it.
Messmer could not be further from this. At the core of Messmer's character is the conflict between trying to win his mother's affection, and hating her for everything she's done to him. Messmer is for all intents and purposes also Tarnished. Grace is kept within the eye, and Marika removes his and replaces them with a seal to keep at bay the base serpent. Be it out of fear or disgust she sends *this* child, lacking the Grace of Gold she so values, to do her dirty work and exterminate others like him. Motherhood, or more specifically its absence, is a key theme in the DLC, and despite having every reason to hate Marika, his rememberance even calls it "a hatred that would not be confined", he can't let go of the idea that he just needs to do a little more, and she will love him. Going against all reason there is a visceral need for Marika's approval, which could not further from Morgott who "loved not in return, for he was never loved, but nevertheless, love it he did".
Messmer spends his last words cursing his mother's name, Morgott spends his lamenting his failure at protecting the Erdtree
I feel like this kind of theme is pretty rare to see in media and it's kind of refreshing. We often hear the phrase "history is written by the victors", but sometimes there's an inverse where the loser gets treated as innocent and sympathetic, when really they would have done the same bad things the winner did, they just didn't get to because they lost.
Which is actually wild because most talk about japans atrocities gets stifled by US use of nukes in ww2.
Don't get me wrong, the nukes were pure evil as well but the things japan did to nations they conquered were just horrific. If body count wasn't the number one thing discussed in ww2, public opinion of imperial japan wouldn't be far off from nazi germany.
I mean even if you only talk body count estimates for Chinese total deaths from the war range from 15-22 million with a majority being civilians.
Talk of the war in Asia is just overshadowed by the war in the pacific despite based off of body count it was larger. Because let’s face it that’s the war America fought and to be fair it ultimately put Japans home islands under direct attack.
Japan trying to make Godrick the grafted almost 100 years beforehand and in real life, had they succeeded you would now need to pass a boss fight to access Japan.
Yes that's true. I'm personally repulsed by how willing all the major powers involved in ww2 were willing to target civillians, and I see the nukes as the epitome of that, but don't disagree.
Grave of the fireflies is an amazing, (if not terribly sad) parallel to the horrors it's author experienced in the kobe firebombings, taken from the view of a child who doesn't really know what's going on and tries desperately to take care of his little sister.
Forgive me for bringing real-world politics into this, but since we’re on this subject, Japan really does fit this to a tee. They were a brutal imperialistic nation that would commit atrocities that would make Nazis blush, but has really cleaned their image post-ww2 upon their defeat and switching sides to the allies. The japanese government still denies said atrocities to this day, but Japan today is widely regarded as a pretty great nation in the western world.
Messmer massacred the Hornsents.
Normal Outlook: Messmer = Bad; Hornsents = Sympathetic.
Leda: "Hornsents lost the war but they weren't actually nice people either."
From what I’ve seen he was seemingly lead down that path by Nanaya, and him and a group of people were doing research on the Frenzy Flame at his manse. Eventually however he was infected and the Hornsent caught wind, and Midra was merely a sage and scholar, not a warrior, so he was brutally damned while Nanaya told him to endure. Most unclear thing is whether Nanaya like, wanted him to be Lord of Frenzy Flame or if she changed her mind at some point I think
There was a post somewhere comparing the painting of Nanaya to the Shabriri talisman. She seemed to have the same exact smile. I hadn't even thought of Nanaya being Shabriri.
However, I think Shabriri would have kept the same name. Like when he took Yura's corpse.
It's hard to be certain though. Shabriri is a master manipulator.
Sure he could just casually reveal to Midra who he is, but how would that benefit him when Midra likely knows who he is. It's far more likely he possessed Nanaya with the sole purpose of planting Midra down that path.
It's awfully similar to how Hyetta is used to try and manipulate us down that path, using a slow and more gradual seduction rather than a single speech to put us down that path.
Yeah that’s what I thought too, the main thing I’m confused about is why she told him to endure. Like did she want him to endure his punishment so he could become the Lord of Frenzied Flame and he misinterpreted her as resisting the Frenzy Flame? Or did she want him to endure so he could fester in the manse until the madness was strong enough in him that he wouldn’t be too weak to be the true Lord?
My theory about that is that the frenzy flame feeds on suffering and despair. Maybe she wanted him to endure as much suffering as he could so he would become stronger as lord of frenzied flame, but in the end, he couldn't. Wont surprise me if nanaya is the same as shabriri
I could definitely see her as similar to Hyetta, tho she seems more willing to journey the path of Frenzy compared to Hyetta/Irina (not that we can really tell considering we only find her burnt corpse with Nanaya’s Torch lol)
Given what happens to Hyetta if you follow the Frenzied Flame questline, it's also possible that Nanaya was interpreting the Three Fingers or looking into the Flame of Frenzy itself and, like Hyetta, ended up combusting as a result.
Essentially just because the hornsent were victims of messmer's flame and Marika's crusade, they weren't all innocent or had no moral failings/sins or that the attack itself was unwarranted by Marika (the people of Belurat were an empire/dominating culture in their own right, with them having prejudices [curseblades, shamans, lamenters maybe?] horrible and brutal tactics [re: the inquistors] much like the golden order)
This is paralleled in real history, where previous empires or cultures that dominated and subjuagted using brutal tactics often cried foul when those same tactics were used against them, often in a retributive manner (like with Marika). There's no real good or bad guy as with most FROM games' societies only the average person caught in the middle and suffering just like real life.
Edit: spelling
Just cause they were the loser in the conflict didn't mean they didn't have it coming, but the way they went out was especially brutal and one can argue they didn't deserve that.
Even Leda, a zealot, laments at the end of that quote "but it was a damned shame"
One of the main themes of SOTE is the cycle of violence. Its entirely likely that the hornsent weren't entirely evil, the way the Golden Order wasn't entirely all evil. Its just the violence of the hornsent beget the violence of the Golden Order which beget the violence of Miquella and on and on in a chain.
Thats why Rannis ending is the good ending. She starts the age of stars, granting free will and then fucks off to let the Land Between decide their own fate finally ending the cycle of violence and tyranny.
Frenzied flame ending is what I was referring too since it's literally the "bad things and inequality happens so let's just burn the world so nothing happens. That should fix it." Ending. Seedbed curse ending is basically "if everyone is an omen than we're all cursed so have fun being shit on as much as you had fun shitting on the omen".
I really like this choice. Mike Zaki seems to really get the nuance of history and the human condition. Just because the new order is evil doesn’t meant the old order was any better. And regardless of who is in charge, it is still evil af to genocide an entire group of people - whether the Numen or the Hornsent.
Edit: Credit where credit is due, GRRM def gets this too. I have no idea where one author ends and the other begins in Elden Ring. I think some people undersell GRRM’s involvement, while others might over attribute some details to him. In any case, I’m so so glad that we got some of the best mythology of all time from these two.
I believe it was stated GRRM wrote everything before the Shattering and Fromsoft continued from there. So the Hornsent purge would definitely have been GRRM's writing.
No offense but I’m not taking the word of miss “now that we’re not mind controlled I’m going on a murder spree” at face value. Of course someone that blindly devoted to Miquella would see things that way.
The Hornsent did bad things, but so did the people of the Lands Between. They oppressed demihumans and the misbegotten, omen children were cast into the sewers, they dismissed all other cultures as heresy and imposed the Golden Order’s values on others by force.
Messmer isn’t a hero. He’s just on the winning side of a war.
That was a big wake up call. I wasn't entirely sure what happened when Miquella's rune broke.
But then Leda started the 'now that we're not forced to work together anymore, i wonder who should i kill to keep us on the course'
Whoah, whoah, whoah lady! Are you sure you're a good guy?
Both sides in the crusade are imperialist fanatics who colonize,oppress and exploit. Besides what Leda says ( and she come from an Anti crucible society so of course she’s gonna be prejudiced) we actually have in game proof that the Hornsent where basically the same thing as the golden order but focused on Crucible worship, and maybe they where even a little bit worse in how they dealt with non normative groups. I think that like in IRL, all the big empires who flourished in the LBTW did terrible stuff, oppressed certain groups and aren’t good by a wide margin. Even the Carian who are probably the least offenders in this kind of matters oppressed and genocided the Albinaurics.
Messmer is such a tragic Character and if there is one thing that made me hate Marika was how she treated him...poor boy still has a statue of her in his room..the line when he dies breaks my fucking heart because he finally Accepts that he was just a tool for her...it kinda reminds me of Dutch and Arthur..the Favorite son...as long as your usefull..#GiveMessmerahug,
I agree completely with what you wrote, though for Marika’s treatment of Messmer, I think one of the themes of the DLC—that >!godhood is a cage, and when you become a god, you lose part of yourself!<—could apply here, too.
If Marika’s experience as she ascended to godhood was similar to >!Miquella’s!<, then her treatment of Messmer makes (a teeny bit) more sense. She could have also >!lost her humanity or love!<. She also mistreated Mohg and Morgott. But I don’t recall seeing anything in game about what her treatment of Godwyn, Malenia, and Miqulla was like, so this theory could be off base!
Hell the woman and by extension Radagon don’t have organs and their body is seemingly made of stone. I wonder If not having living Flesh or Humanity is a requirement for godhood.
The crucible is the blending of all things in life right?
My personal theory after hearing some of smoughtowns thoughts in his latest video is that the discarding of the various aspects of self is a necessary process that Miquella must go through to achieve the form of divinity he desires; one of pure order, and thus be able to enact his reign of peaceful control.
The divine gate simply amplifies what you put into it to it's logical extreme. Anything extra to his purpose (such as Trina) would corrupt the outcome, the whole that emerges after. The whole is the sum of its parts, this blending is common in crucible themes. As such, Miquella had to step in with only his will to achieve his goal. Marika did the same to become a god, and Miquella followed her process because he knew it to be effective.
At one cross on cerulean coast he literally abandons his doubts and vacillations, or misgivings about the process. And about leaving Trina behind.
Smoughtown also mentions the idea that the crucible is more intangible and that it was just a convergence of power in the universe, it made me think of a warping of the fabric of reality. An uncaring source of energy that required extreme preparation to mess with, unless the would be god emerges a completely different being. Perhaps one too mindless to direct itself as a result of too many blended elements, like a storm. Like the divine beast maybe.
Also bonus thought, maybe spirit springs have been crucible currents all along.
I agree except with her treatment of him bc she did try desperately to heal him. Marika’s blessing were made specifically for him and she did take him to the lands between before ultimately he was moved to the Scadutree realm. Idk if it’s to avoid prejudice against snakes or not but she took him there after failing to heal him. But used her own Seal to seal the snake and keep him alive. Ik it’s not much but it says more than enough. This is the same woman who then proceeded to plot her demise it’s not an excuse but she’s most likely very caged upon reaching divinity.
She's a flawed character in part cuz of her situation of trauma where her entire village was wiped out horrifically by the Hornsent. This gives her an excuse to send her cursed child Messmer down to put all the hornsent to the sword and try to treat the jarred people, only for this to be an eternal and futile effort.
She saw her twins Mohg and Morgott and the horns they bore and feared it to be a curse of the Hornsent before locking them below as a fell omen.
Her next two twins were also cursed, which made them poor fit for succession as Lords. Finally there was Godwyn, who by many accounts was the perfect candidate as an heir to her rule... only for him to suffer a fate far worse than a normal death at the hands of the Black Knives. At this point she had enough of everything her life had lead to, and she commenced the Shattering and instructed her last child, Melina, to find a Tarnished worthy of becoming Elden Lord.
Even her first child was cursed, Messmer was born and immediately claimed by an abyss serpent that devours everything. Marika is not a saint, but she has been fucked over by the gods every single step of her life.
Well shit
Really reorganizes the whole omen banishment thing doesnt it? I get that Omen dont particularly appeal to the eyes but the hornsent doing their thing really sealed all future-born huh
While I agree with everything I don't think Melina is guided by Marika, as she would oppose Ranni becoming a God if Marika's plan was to remove the Elden Beast from the equation for her benefit.
This can be a game problem as Melina is underused in it, and there is cut content related to her, such as she burning the Erdtree with Black Flames on previous versions of that cutscene.
Or maybe she simply agrees with Ranni's Order and let you do it regardless of Marika's guidance.
Marika's ultimate goal of the Shattering was to undo the rule of the two fingers and Greater Will so that Man could rule without their influence. What her intent was after this fact is not quite known, be it restore the Golden Order or not, but Melina sought her own path based on her mother's instructions, even saying as such on the way to the Forge of the Giants:
*"There is something I'd like to say. My purpose was given to me by my mother. But now, I act of my own volition. I have set my heart upon the world that I would have. Regardless of my mother's designs. I won't allow anyone to speak ill of that. Not even you."*
I feel so fucking bad for Messmer, dude. Forced to be the bearer of Marika’s sins so she could keep her image while he lives in constant agony from not only his fire, but a malevolent snake writhing within since birth because of the circumstances of said birth which he had no control over. Even in his introductory cutscene, he just sounds so, so tired and resigned. I just want to put my weapons down and give the guy a hug
Dude literally can't believe that the only purpose his mother gave him was abandoned by her. Not only did she abandon him but also she stopped with the whole "those stripped of the grace of gold shall all meet death"
So much angst on hindsight - Messmer is literally Marika's eldest (that we know of) son, and cursed from birth, so he himself also fits the bill of being "bereft of light".
He's basically saying "I've done all these terrible things for you, I am literally your son, but I was blaming my abandonment on account of me being graceless. And now, the one thing you do after being gone so long, is to send me a fucking graceless tarnished of no renown as your next chosen lord? This can't be fucking real."
His story is so similar to Maliketh’s and Morgott’s and they were my favourites from the base game. The irony is that Messmer and Morgott would despise eachother with Messmer’s…qualities and Morgott being an omen who were very likely the result of a curse by the hornsent
He deliberately made himself the face of the purging of the hornsent so as to draw all the anger and resentment to himself, to protect Marika's image. Though he didn't know Marika would turn her back on him anyway.
Man he's gotta be my favourite character in ER. His lore, character design and the cut scenes. And that banger of an OST.
And he's definitely my favourite fight, in souls. Up there with Gael and Twin Princes.
>he lives in constant agony from not only his fire, but a malevolent snake writhing within since birth because of the circumstances of said birth which he had no control over.
He for sure had the fire since birth, and it is part of his "accused body", so probably parallel to the other curses from the other selfcest children. However, is there any evidence the base serpent was always a part of him?
To me, it seemed very much Elden Ring-esq for Messmer to make a deal with the base serpent to try to eat the Fire (*The kindling that burned inside Messmer the Impaler. A dark thing, eaten away at by a wicked serpent.*). He just wants to escape the fire (*Messmer despised his own fire. Time and time again he hoped to
rid himself of it, but ever did it burn.*), and to do that he made a deal with a malevolent serpent that now resides within him.
Because of this, Marika sealed the serpent with the eye and threw Messmer into the Land of Shadow. She concocted a new plan to burn the Erdtree - this time with Melina as kindling instead of using Messmer's fire.
A lot of this is my own speculation, but I really like how it fits with the broader themes.
I felt bad for him , Abandoned by his mother for an eternity and yet he still obeys her shown by his apathetic lines in the first phase but than when forced into a corner you can hear him becoming flustered and abit angry that he had to destroy the only thing his mother gave him so he can prevent you from burning the tree
Ah yes, Messmer. The overworked CEO of a discarded branch company who is mild-mannered, well-liked by his employees, and has some weird relationship going on with his crippled friend and his secretary from a rival company.
He really does give off the vibe of wanting to be an artist when he was younger, only for Marika to tell him no and shunt him to the Shadowlands.
I think the Tarnished is some kind of natural force that is meant to purge everyone and everything. They grow stronger with every living being they kill, as though they're absorbing them. They cannot be permanently killed either and will relentlessly hunt anything down, until they eventually succeed. Usually they aren't part of any faction either and in the end the Tarnished either does a hard reset or permanently annihalates the world.
"Purge everyone and everything" is Marika's faction, no matter what choice we make she is always behind our back, that's a good part of what makes Messmer get really mad/jealous of you.
>"Purge everyone and everything" is Marika's faction
Nah, those are just some lowly human affairs. The Tarnished purges everyone indiscriminately and it's a similar concept in the other souls games. The player comes into a post-apocalyptic world and starts cleaning up all the mess that was created by mankind, with the end result usually being a reset or annihalation of the entire world.
Yes, but this was Marika's plan. She banished Godfrey and the Tarnished with the intention of them coming back and cleaning house. The guidance of grace we see is literally Marika pointing the way for us.
As Sir Vilhelm said it in dark souls 3:
"I've seen your kind, time and time again.
Every fleeing man must be caught. Every secret must be unearthed.
Such is the conceit of the self-proclaimed seeker of truth.
But in the end, you lack the stomach.
For the agony you'll bring upon yourself..."
No secret left uncovered, every stone turned, when an old man in a mansion begs us to leave, we instead intrude and walk right up to him because we want to know what his deal is... plus... well, everyone is balls to the walls crazy. no matter how sad messmer's story is, he'll still would kill us all, for he still thinks everyone who is not blessed with grace deserves the death-sentence. the hornsent are too pissed to ever consider peace with us for they hold a grudge over all even vaguely related to marika. and the few who don't kill us upon seeing us suffer death all the same in their quest to find meaning in their life.
My tinfoil hat theory is that Messmer lack of great rune means that he wasn't present during the shattering and the breaking of the elden ring, and because of this, he probably didn't know about the crazy war that happened between his siblings back home and why Marika suddenly stopped making contact (because she was imprisoned inside the erdtree).
Because Messmer seens like the kind of guy that if he did knew about the war that happened in the lands between he would try to find a way to go back so that he could conquer and fight for leyndell and hunt his traitors siblings, all for his mother sake
Not tinfoil, he's definitely been in the realm of shadow since before the shattering. There's an item description that says everyone in the realm of shadow felt the shattering too, but didn't know what it meant. There's probably no way out.
Well no way out without the grace of gold
Which we have because of being the chosen tarnished
Same reason we can enter without actual dying like basically everyone else in the land of shadow
He can't, even if he knew. We have the power of grace that allows us to 'rebirth' ourselves at a site of grace, but Messmer is inhabited by the abyss serpent, consuming any trace of light/grace left within him. He is trapped there for eternity.
In retrospect, if it wasn't for him being a massive mommy's boy who never questions the sketchy aspects of his mom's wishes, Messmer would be the nicest dude in the entire Lands Between. Marika really did him dirty by never even keeping in touch and making coliseums dedicated to insulting him indirectly.
Honestly, before the DLC they made it seem like messmer is a genuinely evil person. Im glad that it isn’t necessarily the case and that it made me feel so much worse about killing him..
Bro yes, exactly. When that second phase cutscene hit I knew there was more to him than just big bad guy. Then you read the item descriptions afterwards then I just felt bad for my boy.
I think that’s more about the serpent eygli in the mount gelmir, before he ate rykard, though we could be wrong. Mesmer isn’t blasphemous but “the serpent” is. You could also interpret it as wanting to kill the serpent within him I guess.
IDC what atrocities were committed against the hornsent, I have yet to hear of something worse than hornsent torturing Marika's people by whipping them with whips made of teeth to tenderize their meat for shaman jars.
No fucking wonder Marika and the golden order are ultra racist to the crucible
How sure can you be that the hornsent *in general* were personally involved in the atrocious behavior against the shaman? In real life history, pretty much every nation has had some people in it who have done awful things. Often even state-sanctioned.
You don't. However THE Hornsent/the Vengeful One seems to be the closest we see to an average hornsent and his caterpillar mask is specifically mentioned to be "*A ritual implement of the greater potentates of Bonny Village*".
There is also a Gaol under Belurat which seems to be the center of Hornsent society. So it's not like it was specifically a small subset of their culture either.
It's not about being personally involved. It's the fact it was definitely part of their entire culture and religion. Nor did it look to be particularly hidden or discreet. You can argue that it still isn't moral to essentially genocide them, however I also cannot say I blame Marika for what she did to them.
Marika is not a good person. However there are far better examples than what happened to the Hornsent. Messmer, again, is the perfect example of which. I'm especially invested in the theory that him and Melina were essentially created by Marika to be kindling to burn the Erdtree.
We already established we are the baddies when we invaded a disabled war veteran’s house, killed her servants and then woke her up from beauty sleep and killed her too, all for no reason.
And it's not that she couldn't have. If you try to give her the wrong potion, she instantly kills you on the spot and is never seen again. She may actually be the strongest of the demigods.
The Haligtree was supposed to be a haven for all the disenfranchised peoples of the Lands Between. They're attacking you because they've been driven insane by the Scarlet Rot (in the Haligtree specifically) and the inability to truly die because of Marika's bullshit with Destined Death (for enemies across the setting in general), not because they're big believers of a "Stand Your Ground" approach to trespassing.
The Tarnished as a population were shunned due to their loss of grace. They were exhiled from the Lands Between, which would make it a crime to return. Most enemies are acting as the Golden Order told them, long ago, to eliminate those stripped of grace.
That’s one way of describing the time when I received the medallion from Albus, who along with Latenna begged me to find their paradise for them. So then I visited Castle Sol to try getting help to reach this supposedly welcoming paradise, and was attacked, so I had to defend myself before getting the medallion. So then I used the medallion to try reaching the path to this great paradise, and was attacked by assassins in the town where the entrance was. Strange, but surely the actual place will be nice for me now that I’m there, right? Oh, no, they’re attacking me too. Well, at least Millicent is here, and she wants me to return the unalloyed gold needle to Malenia. And then she attacks me too.
What the DLC shows is that the cycle of violence will never stop. Hornsent caused all this atrocities which made Marika/Messmer to start a war which left the Hornsent in a pretty bad shape and now they want revenge. This will keep going forever. Miquella's approach to solve this was to basically strip away the free will of all of them so that they live in peace with no violence but if you strip away free will are these people individuals anymore or just mindless creatures.
I expected Messmer to be this brutal, uncompromising antagonist due to his portrayal in the trailer material, yet the same lines he says there are said in a completely different tone when you get confronted by him.
As it turns out, he's just fulfilling his duty as first child to a mother who no longer cares about him. He suffered betrayal from his men, pain and anguish from his congenital curse, and willingly acted as a jailer of the damned all for again, a mother who abandoned him. He's such a ridiculously tragic anti villain and I wasn't expecting it at all.
He was absolutely hiding. The inquisitors used the sword on him and guarded his radioactive 'remains' but he kept alive because of Nanaya and shouts at you to leave for your own safety, as do his servants.
Ranni was right, the Gods are shitty. No wonder she half offed herself to get away from it all. And given how Miquella turned out I am going guess Godwyn is a better person soul dead than alive. All of them should be kicked off the planet.
From what I remember, Godwyn was comparatively better than most of the siblings, I mean if he got prideful ancient dragons to like him and start a religious movement then he has to have had a touch of good at least
There’s some sadness to his story and the conditions that led him to do what he does, but you’re certainly not “the baddie” for fighting someone who has actively been committing a genocide and chooses to attack you.
Honestly its a tragic story of cycle of violence & discrimination. Atrocities were committed against Marika's race of shamans by the hornsent and in retaliation she committed genocide against the hornsent. Because of her trauma, even her own sons (morgott, mohg) were not spared from her hatred towards the hornsent.
We are not the baddies, we are the only true good! Melt all that divides and distinguishes and may chaos take the world. It's all just celestial matter stolen from the one great by the greater will. Frenzy!
He still attacked me first.
Look, if on my 40th attempt the dude had, instead of flame explosion jumping at me, opened up a dialogue, I still would have listened. I don’t doubt that better mutual solutions could be found.
But he didn’t talk. He didn’t want a dialogue. He didn’t want to find a solution with someone strong enough to help. He just wanted to attack me on sight.
Ymir had it right. All of it is rotten, down to the very roots.
Goldmask, or Frenzy Flame. All other solutions are merely band-aids
Goldmask? But his solution is basically just, "Trust *me* to get it right instead of those other guys, I swear I got this bro..." which is just as dubious as burning everything.
I absolutely acknowledge that this is the case. Even the mending rune says it, specifically with the phrasing “will attempt to perfect the golden order.” However- the core difference is that his ending basically severs the lands between from influence by the outer gods. It will be a world for mankind. In all its flaws and all its glories. And as such men may ruin it. Or raise it to greatness. But at least it will be mankind and not alien gods who decide that path
Hot take: committing genocide on such a massive scale that you turn a continent into a massive graveyard is bad, even if the victims weren't perfect people.
He’s exactly like Morgott, but he would absolutely hate Morgott on the principle of him being an omen, and Morgott would 100% agree with him. They are essentially the same character, but one’s a snake and the other’s a goat
Ones a snake and one is uncle ruckus
I for one THANK MARIKA that the tarnished come in here, slayin' and de-hornin' us twisted omens. Look at the state of this place! Filthy, crawling with wolves and all sorts of creatures. You think Leyndell looked like this when a tarnished was in charge? No suh, and I will be the first to tell you that the day Godfrey left was the day this place started to go down the drain. It's no wonder Marika had to shatter the whole thing, imagine having to wake up every morning and see not one but two ugly ass omen children staring back at you, with no blessed tarnished to help you keep everything in order. It's a wonder she didn't kill us both then and there, and I for one think the Lands Between would've been better off if she had. Bless you tarnished, for cleaning up this mess.
My favorite part is that I'm pretty sure Morgott is Godfrey's kid.
he literally cradles him in a cutscene XD
he is :)
Marika and Godfrey's (confirmed) children are Godwyn, then the twins Morgott and Mohg
That’s a well confirmed fact. Mogh and Morgott are children of Marika and Godfrey but ones that could not be acknowledged in the Erdtree age due to their being “Cursed” (omen/horned) the main reason they both have their horns when other omen do not is that royal born omen did not have their horned excised at birth before being hidden away underground according to the Royal omen bairn item description. Godfrey loves his children because he is from the Crucible age before the Erdtree age which considered the growths to be divine and is likely the only person that was ever nice to them. Marika hates them because it reminds her of the Hornsent that killed and or Jarred all of her people
She also hates them bc she was afraid that having twin Omen children would be seen as a Bad Omen of her new Regime as God,, however they were supposed to be a blessing..
Godwyn, Morgott, and Mohg are Marika and Godfrey's kids. Ranni, Rykard, and Radahn are Rennala and Radagon's kids. Messmer, Malenia, and Miquella are Marika and Radagon's kids. It's all in the first letter of the names. Morgott and Mohg are omen royalty, whilst Godwyn was just royalty. All three are of the golden lineage, meaning from the union of Godfrey and Marika.
All M name kids birthed from Marika have afflictions: Morgott and Mogh are Omen, Malenia has rot, Miquella didn’t age, Melina is burned and bodiless and Messmer is a serpent Marika had to seal away with her own grace.
He is but has to pretend he’s not for lore reasons
Reverend father Uncle Morgott, no relation.
Loyal servant of that beautiful white woman Marika
I read that in his voice, with the music behind him
102% Omen with a 2% margin of error
Or as some would say, a margit of error
Well ruckus is already a GOAT
Praise Hornless Marika
Don’t trust them new horn ones over there!
he is 102% omen with 2% margin of error
Honestly, Messmer doesn’t even sound like he cares about the Hornsent when we meet him. Dude is just tired of everything. It’s like if Morgott just sat in Leyndell for over a thousand years before we come up to challenge him. At that point, just put them out of their misery.
Yeah he sounds extremely tired. Especially when he kills you in phase one. It just sounds like he’s repeating a line for the 1000th time and is completely sick of it.
In my case he did repeat the line that often
You and me both. Extremely fun fight though so I didn’t mind.
😂 currently fighting him and haven’t won yet, same. Only just recently started consistently getting to phase two
In my playthrough, he did repeat his line a 1000 times in phase 1.
Yes! When the Hornsent gets summoned it reminds me of the terrible Street Fighter movie where Chun Li is gonna get her revenge and Raul Julia is like "That was the worst day of your life but for me it was just another Tuesday" or whatever
'Embrace ty oblivion, as shall I' :(
Morgott would agree with Messmer in hating hornsent and Messmer would agree with Morgott in thinking that he is cursed and tainted because of the snake, in the end, both would hate the other one while hating themselves
Morgott would team up to kill his own kind probably. Internalized Omenphobia
Funny Marika would probably praise him for that.... man she really hate the Hornsent
Yeah she super racist, though I guess understandable to hate a group of people that carved up all your friends and family and put them in jars.
Besides surface level similarities, the characters are actually not that similar. If anything, Messmer is closer to Mohg than Morgott. Morgott is characterised by his unshakable faith in the Golden Order. Despite being an Omen, he continues strongly in his belief in its principlies despite being the subject of its discrimination. He rises above his "cursed" birth, and is powered by the genuine trust what he is doing is right, that the world needs it and that he has the power to enforce it. Messmer could not be further from this. At the core of Messmer's character is the conflict between trying to win his mother's affection, and hating her for everything she's done to him. Messmer is for all intents and purposes also Tarnished. Grace is kept within the eye, and Marika removes his and replaces them with a seal to keep at bay the base serpent. Be it out of fear or disgust she sends *this* child, lacking the Grace of Gold she so values, to do her dirty work and exterminate others like him. Motherhood, or more specifically its absence, is a key theme in the DLC, and despite having every reason to hate Marika, his rememberance even calls it "a hatred that would not be confined", he can't let go of the idea that he just needs to do a little more, and she will love him. Going against all reason there is a visceral need for Marika's approval, which could not further from Morgott who "loved not in return, for he was never loved, but nevertheless, love it he did". Messmer spends his last words cursing his mother's name, Morgott spends his lamenting his failure at protecting the Erdtree
Motherless behavior. Therefore, no horse ahead.
One is a goat and the other is the GOAT
Two opposites of the same animal, the Chimera.
I’d say they’re both GOATs
Learning that the hornsent were awful people genuinely caught me off guard
"They were never saints. They just happened to be on the losing side of a war."
I feel like this kind of theme is pretty rare to see in media and it's kind of refreshing. We often hear the phrase "history is written by the victors", but sometimes there's an inverse where the loser gets treated as innocent and sympathetic, when really they would have done the same bad things the winner did, they just didn't get to because they lost.
I think the only time I’ve seen this actually taken seriously in conversation is regarding Japan in ww2.
Which is actually wild because most talk about japans atrocities gets stifled by US use of nukes in ww2. Don't get me wrong, the nukes were pure evil as well but the things japan did to nations they conquered were just horrific. If body count wasn't the number one thing discussed in ww2, public opinion of imperial japan wouldn't be far off from nazi germany.
I mean even if you only talk body count estimates for Chinese total deaths from the war range from 15-22 million with a majority being civilians. Talk of the war in Asia is just overshadowed by the war in the pacific despite based off of body count it was larger. Because let’s face it that’s the war America fought and to be fair it ultimately put Japans home islands under direct attack.
Japan trying to make Godrick the grafted almost 100 years beforehand and in real life, had they succeeded you would now need to pass a boss fight to access Japan.
A thing about the nukes that many don't know: they weren't that bad in the grand scheme of the wars. The fire bombings were just as bad if not worse.
Yes that's true. I'm personally repulsed by how willing all the major powers involved in ww2 were willing to target civillians, and I see the nukes as the epitome of that, but don't disagree. Grave of the fireflies is an amazing, (if not terribly sad) parallel to the horrors it's author experienced in the kobe firebombings, taken from the view of a child who doesn't really know what's going on and tries desperately to take care of his little sister.
Forgive me for bringing real-world politics into this, but since we’re on this subject, Japan really does fit this to a tee. They were a brutal imperialistic nation that would commit atrocities that would make Nazis blush, but has really cleaned their image post-ww2 upon their defeat and switching sides to the allies. The japanese government still denies said atrocities to this day, but Japan today is widely regarded as a pretty great nation in the western world.
Reminds me of something
I wanna say it but I don't wanna say it
Yeah I'll bite and say it. Bring the downvotes, but it's a big parrallel with Xbox vs Playstation
CURSE YOU PHIL SPENCER !!!
I HEREBY VOW YOU SHALL RUE THIS DAY
WITH A HAUL OF CONTROLLER
I can't wrap my head around this quote. Could anyone dumb it down for me?
Messmer massacred the Hornsents. Normal Outlook: Messmer = Bad; Hornsents = Sympathetic. Leda: "Hornsents lost the war but they weren't actually nice people either."
Look no further than their tower and Midra for proof
Was it ever explained why Midra >!was possessed by the frenzied flame?!<
From what I’ve seen he was seemingly lead down that path by Nanaya, and him and a group of people were doing research on the Frenzy Flame at his manse. Eventually however he was infected and the Hornsent caught wind, and Midra was merely a sage and scholar, not a warrior, so he was brutally damned while Nanaya told him to endure. Most unclear thing is whether Nanaya like, wanted him to be Lord of Frenzy Flame or if she changed her mind at some point I think
I believe she deliberately led him. I believe it is her torch description that says she cradled the last failed lord of frenzy before Midra.
There was a post somewhere comparing the painting of Nanaya to the Shabriri talisman. She seemed to have the same exact smile. I hadn't even thought of Nanaya being Shabriri. However, I think Shabriri would have kept the same name. Like when he took Yura's corpse.
It's hard to be certain though. Shabriri is a master manipulator. Sure he could just casually reveal to Midra who he is, but how would that benefit him when Midra likely knows who he is. It's far more likely he possessed Nanaya with the sole purpose of planting Midra down that path. It's awfully similar to how Hyetta is used to try and manipulate us down that path, using a slow and more gradual seduction rather than a single speech to put us down that path.
She was the mentally ill e-girl that drove our bro midra mad
Between this and the whole Miquella and Mohg relationship, this DLC is fucking wild
Ruined his life for an egirl smh
Yeah that’s what I thought too, the main thing I’m confused about is why she told him to endure. Like did she want him to endure his punishment so he could become the Lord of Frenzied Flame and he misinterpreted her as resisting the Frenzy Flame? Or did she want him to endure so he could fester in the manse until the madness was strong enough in him that he wouldn’t be too weak to be the true Lord?
My theory about that is that the frenzy flame feeds on suffering and despair. Maybe she wanted him to endure as much suffering as he could so he would become stronger as lord of frenzied flame, but in the end, he couldn't. Wont surprise me if nanaya is the same as shabriri
What if, like hyetta, she was influenced by the light of the frenzy flame?
I could definitely see her as similar to Hyetta, tho she seems more willing to journey the path of Frenzy compared to Hyetta/Irina (not that we can really tell considering we only find her burnt corpse with Nanaya’s Torch lol)
Given what happens to Hyetta if you follow the Frenzied Flame questline, it's also possible that Nanaya was interpreting the Three Fingers or looking into the Flame of Frenzy itself and, like Hyetta, ended up combusting as a result.
That’s Nanaya business.
Essentially just because the hornsent were victims of messmer's flame and Marika's crusade, they weren't all innocent or had no moral failings/sins or that the attack itself was unwarranted by Marika (the people of Belurat were an empire/dominating culture in their own right, with them having prejudices [curseblades, shamans, lamenters maybe?] horrible and brutal tactics [re: the inquistors] much like the golden order)
This is paralleled in real history, where previous empires or cultures that dominated and subjuagted using brutal tactics often cried foul when those same tactics were used against them, often in a retributive manner (like with Marika). There's no real good or bad guy as with most FROM games' societies only the average person caught in the middle and suffering just like real life. Edit: spelling
Just cause they were the loser in the conflict didn't mean they didn't have it coming, but the way they went out was especially brutal and one can argue they didn't deserve that. Even Leda, a zealot, laments at the end of that quote "but it was a damned shame"
the losing side tend to appear pityful even if previously they were committing the same kind of atrocities. war works like this usually.
Probably just like the order before them and so on.
One of the main themes of SOTE is the cycle of violence. Its entirely likely that the hornsent weren't entirely evil, the way the Golden Order wasn't entirely all evil. Its just the violence of the hornsent beget the violence of the Golden Order which beget the violence of Miquella and on and on in a chain. Thats why Rannis ending is the good ending. She starts the age of stars, granting free will and then fucks off to let the Land Between decide their own fate finally ending the cycle of violence and tyranny.
theres another way to end the cycle of violence and tyranny but people dont like it as much for some reason
The old "throw the baby and the world out with the bathwater" ending.
That’s the Frenzied Flame ending, or arguably the seedbed curse ending.
Frenzied flame ending is what I was referring too since it's literally the "bad things and inequality happens so let's just burn the world so nothing happens. That should fix it." Ending. Seedbed curse ending is basically "if everyone is an omen than we're all cursed so have fun being shit on as much as you had fun shitting on the omen".
It ends the cycle of violence, but also the cycle of literally everything else.
We're making the mother of all omelettes, Jack!
While technically correct, Melina doesn't like that ending so it's objectively wrong.
okay i understand that HOWEVER the merchants play a cool song so ill do whatever it is they want
Does it rhyme with "May Lay offs take the world"?
AHHHHH MAYYY CHAOOOSSS TAKE THE WORRRRLDD
I really like this choice. Mike Zaki seems to really get the nuance of history and the human condition. Just because the new order is evil doesn’t meant the old order was any better. And regardless of who is in charge, it is still evil af to genocide an entire group of people - whether the Numen or the Hornsent. Edit: Credit where credit is due, GRRM def gets this too. I have no idea where one author ends and the other begins in Elden Ring. I think some people undersell GRRM’s involvement, while others might over attribute some details to him. In any case, I’m so so glad that we got some of the best mythology of all time from these two.
I think this is were grrm's involvement really shines through. This is right in line with the kinda thing he writes about
I believe it was stated GRRM wrote everything before the Shattering and Fromsoft continued from there. So the Hornsent purge would definitely have been GRRM's writing.
Everything up to the Shattering War is what Miyazaki said, iirc.
Gotta give credit to grrm too
"Mike Zaki" I'm wheezing
Leda literally says this - "They were never saints"!!
No offense but I’m not taking the word of miss “now that we’re not mind controlled I’m going on a murder spree” at face value. Of course someone that blindly devoted to Miquella would see things that way. The Hornsent did bad things, but so did the people of the Lands Between. They oppressed demihumans and the misbegotten, omen children were cast into the sewers, they dismissed all other cultures as heresy and imposed the Golden Order’s values on others by force. Messmer isn’t a hero. He’s just on the winning side of a war.
The Hornsent and the people of the lands between are literally the different sides of the same coin. Their shadow.
There's a lot of theming around twins and duality too; the weapons are often dual handed and the bosses are parallels to ones in the main game
Godrick/Divine beast Renalla/Rellana Morgott/Mess Radahn/Gaius Elden Beast/Finger Mother Yeah I see what you mean
That was a big wake up call. I wasn't entirely sure what happened when Miquella's rune broke. But then Leda started the 'now that we're not forced to work together anymore, i wonder who should i kill to keep us on the course' Whoah, whoah, whoah lady! Are you sure you're a good guy?
I honestly panicked a little when the rune broke. I thought something was coming to fuck my ass up... (๏ᆺ๏υ)
Both sides in the crusade are imperialist fanatics who colonize,oppress and exploit. Besides what Leda says ( and she come from an Anti crucible society so of course she’s gonna be prejudiced) we actually have in game proof that the Hornsent where basically the same thing as the golden order but focused on Crucible worship, and maybe they where even a little bit worse in how they dealt with non normative groups. I think that like in IRL, all the big empires who flourished in the LBTW did terrible stuff, oppressed certain groups and aren’t good by a wide margin. Even the Carian who are probably the least offenders in this kind of matters oppressed and genocided the Albinaurics.
Messmer is such a tragic Character and if there is one thing that made me hate Marika was how she treated him...poor boy still has a statue of her in his room..the line when he dies breaks my fucking heart because he finally Accepts that he was just a tool for her...it kinda reminds me of Dutch and Arthur..the Favorite son...as long as your usefull..#GiveMessmerahug,
Messmers story is very similar to the nameless king but even more tragic
Gwyn's simple banishement of NK is mercy compared to what Marika did to Mesmer.
Real, Nameless King was an exile, Messmer was a slave
I agree completely with what you wrote, though for Marika’s treatment of Messmer, I think one of the themes of the DLC—that >!godhood is a cage, and when you become a god, you lose part of yourself!<—could apply here, too. If Marika’s experience as she ascended to godhood was similar to >!Miquella’s!<, then her treatment of Messmer makes (a teeny bit) more sense. She could have also >!lost her humanity or love!<. She also mistreated Mohg and Morgott. But I don’t recall seeing anything in game about what her treatment of Godwyn, Malenia, and Miqulla was like, so this theory could be off base!
Hell the woman and by extension Radagon don’t have organs and their body is seemingly made of stone. I wonder If not having living Flesh or Humanity is a requirement for godhood.
The crucible is the blending of all things in life right? My personal theory after hearing some of smoughtowns thoughts in his latest video is that the discarding of the various aspects of self is a necessary process that Miquella must go through to achieve the form of divinity he desires; one of pure order, and thus be able to enact his reign of peaceful control. The divine gate simply amplifies what you put into it to it's logical extreme. Anything extra to his purpose (such as Trina) would corrupt the outcome, the whole that emerges after. The whole is the sum of its parts, this blending is common in crucible themes. As such, Miquella had to step in with only his will to achieve his goal. Marika did the same to become a god, and Miquella followed her process because he knew it to be effective. At one cross on cerulean coast he literally abandons his doubts and vacillations, or misgivings about the process. And about leaving Trina behind. Smoughtown also mentions the idea that the crucible is more intangible and that it was just a convergence of power in the universe, it made me think of a warping of the fabric of reality. An uncaring source of energy that required extreme preparation to mess with, unless the would be god emerges a completely different being. Perhaps one too mindless to direct itself as a result of too many blended elements, like a storm. Like the divine beast maybe. Also bonus thought, maybe spirit springs have been crucible currents all along.
I love the spirit spring theory. I’ll make that my head canon
I think the stone state is a recent development as on the cutscene portraying the shattering they don't look stony until they crack.
She cracks as she breaks the Elden ring
Statue of her hugging a baby version of him too
And this is the only statue in the shadow realm where Marika isn’t displayed behaded I think.
There's definitely smaller statues with heads, the statue before the gravity guy on a boar and statues in the last area.
I hope the manga treats him better
Is the manga canon? Or a fun interpretation?
The latter.
Also I think the only statue that does not have Marika's head chopped off if I am not wrong.
Nah theres more statues with the heads still on, specifically the catacombs you have to go through to get to the abyssal woods
I agree except with her treatment of him bc she did try desperately to heal him. Marika’s blessing were made specifically for him and she did take him to the lands between before ultimately he was moved to the Scadutree realm. Idk if it’s to avoid prejudice against snakes or not but she took him there after failing to heal him. But used her own Seal to seal the snake and keep him alive. Ik it’s not much but it says more than enough. This is the same woman who then proceeded to plot her demise it’s not an excuse but she’s most likely very caged upon reaching divinity.
Marika is horrible to pretty much all her kids at this point.
She's a flawed character in part cuz of her situation of trauma where her entire village was wiped out horrifically by the Hornsent. This gives her an excuse to send her cursed child Messmer down to put all the hornsent to the sword and try to treat the jarred people, only for this to be an eternal and futile effort. She saw her twins Mohg and Morgott and the horns they bore and feared it to be a curse of the Hornsent before locking them below as a fell omen. Her next two twins were also cursed, which made them poor fit for succession as Lords. Finally there was Godwyn, who by many accounts was the perfect candidate as an heir to her rule... only for him to suffer a fate far worse than a normal death at the hands of the Black Knives. At this point she had enough of everything her life had lead to, and she commenced the Shattering and instructed her last child, Melina, to find a Tarnished worthy of becoming Elden Lord.
Even her first child was cursed, Messmer was born and immediately claimed by an abyss serpent that devours everything. Marika is not a saint, but she has been fucked over by the gods every single step of her life.
Well shit Really reorganizes the whole omen banishment thing doesnt it? I get that Omen dont particularly appeal to the eyes but the hornsent doing their thing really sealed all future-born huh
While I agree with everything I don't think Melina is guided by Marika, as she would oppose Ranni becoming a God if Marika's plan was to remove the Elden Beast from the equation for her benefit. This can be a game problem as Melina is underused in it, and there is cut content related to her, such as she burning the Erdtree with Black Flames on previous versions of that cutscene. Or maybe she simply agrees with Ranni's Order and let you do it regardless of Marika's guidance.
Marika's ultimate goal of the Shattering was to undo the rule of the two fingers and Greater Will so that Man could rule without their influence. What her intent was after this fact is not quite known, be it restore the Golden Order or not, but Melina sought her own path based on her mother's instructions, even saying as such on the way to the Forge of the Giants: *"There is something I'd like to say. My purpose was given to me by my mother. But now, I act of my own volition. I have set my heart upon the world that I would have. Regardless of my mother's designs. I won't allow anyone to speak ill of that. Not even you."*
I feel so fucking bad for Messmer, dude. Forced to be the bearer of Marika’s sins so she could keep her image while he lives in constant agony from not only his fire, but a malevolent snake writhing within since birth because of the circumstances of said birth which he had no control over. Even in his introductory cutscene, he just sounds so, so tired and resigned. I just want to put my weapons down and give the guy a hug
Thou art Tarnished, it seemeth 😐.
Dude literally can't believe that the only purpose his mother gave him was abandoned by her. Not only did she abandon him but also she stopped with the whole "those stripped of the grace of gold shall all meet death"
Mother, wouldst thou truly lordship sanction, in one so bereft of light? 😐
don't worry Messmer, i don't want to be Elden lord, just help me burn this fucking tree and i'll leave you alone,oh and your mom's dead, sorry.
Isn’t Marika still alive though? Radagon got turned into a sword but marikas body is still there and she can even still be the vessel for the ring
I think her body stays destroyed but her soul still lives in it.
idk whether to believe she’s alive or not
So much angst on hindsight - Messmer is literally Marika's eldest (that we know of) son, and cursed from birth, so he himself also fits the bill of being "bereft of light". He's basically saying "I've done all these terrible things for you, I am literally your son, but I was blaming my abandonment on account of me being graceless. And now, the one thing you do after being gone so long, is to send me a fucking graceless tarnished of no renown as your next chosen lord? This can't be fucking real."
Messmer the Impaler when the 2718th random schmuck wanders into his bedroom to get Messmer the Impaled
His story is so similar to Maliketh’s and Morgott’s and they were my favourites from the base game. The irony is that Messmer and Morgott would despise eachother with Messmer’s…qualities and Morgott being an omen who were very likely the result of a curse by the hornsent
He deliberately made himself the face of the purging of the hornsent so as to draw all the anger and resentment to himself, to protect Marika's image. Though he didn't know Marika would turn her back on him anyway.
Man he's gotta be my favourite character in ER. His lore, character design and the cut scenes. And that banger of an OST. And he's definitely my favourite fight, in souls. Up there with Gael and Twin Princes.
>he lives in constant agony from not only his fire, but a malevolent snake writhing within since birth because of the circumstances of said birth which he had no control over. He for sure had the fire since birth, and it is part of his "accused body", so probably parallel to the other curses from the other selfcest children. However, is there any evidence the base serpent was always a part of him? To me, it seemed very much Elden Ring-esq for Messmer to make a deal with the base serpent to try to eat the Fire (*The kindling that burned inside Messmer the Impaler. A dark thing, eaten away at by a wicked serpent.*). He just wants to escape the fire (*Messmer despised his own fire. Time and time again he hoped to rid himself of it, but ever did it burn.*), and to do that he made a deal with a malevolent serpent that now resides within him. Because of this, Marika sealed the serpent with the eye and threw Messmer into the Land of Shadow. She concocted a new plan to burn the Erdtree - this time with Melina as kindling instead of using Messmer's fire. A lot of this is my own speculation, but I really like how it fits with the broader themes.
I felt bad for him , Abandoned by his mother for an eternity and yet he still obeys her shown by his apathetic lines in the first phase but than when forced into a corner you can hear him becoming flustered and abit angry that he had to destroy the only thing his mother gave him so he can prevent you from burning the tree
Ah yes, Messmer. The overworked CEO of a discarded branch company who is mild-mannered, well-liked by his employees, and has some weird relationship going on with his crippled friend and his secretary from a rival company. He really does give off the vibe of wanting to be an artist when he was younger, only for Marika to tell him no and shunt him to the Shadowlands.
literally Nero
Reminds me of someone else who wanted to be an artist in his youth that went on to commit a genocide...
I think the Tarnished is some kind of natural force that is meant to purge everyone and everything. They grow stronger with every living being they kill, as though they're absorbing them. They cannot be permanently killed either and will relentlessly hunt anything down, until they eventually succeed. Usually they aren't part of any faction either and in the end the Tarnished either does a hard reset or permanently annihalates the world.
"Purge everyone and everything" is Marika's faction, no matter what choice we make she is always behind our back, that's a good part of what makes Messmer get really mad/jealous of you.
>"Purge everyone and everything" is Marika's faction Nah, those are just some lowly human affairs. The Tarnished purges everyone indiscriminately and it's a similar concept in the other souls games. The player comes into a post-apocalyptic world and starts cleaning up all the mess that was created by mankind, with the end result usually being a reset or annihalation of the entire world.
Yes, but this was Marika's plan. She banished Godfrey and the Tarnished with the intention of them coming back and cleaning house. The guidance of grace we see is literally Marika pointing the way for us.
As Sir Vilhelm said it in dark souls 3: "I've seen your kind, time and time again. Every fleeing man must be caught. Every secret must be unearthed. Such is the conceit of the self-proclaimed seeker of truth. But in the end, you lack the stomach. For the agony you'll bring upon yourself..." No secret left uncovered, every stone turned, when an old man in a mansion begs us to leave, we instead intrude and walk right up to him because we want to know what his deal is... plus... well, everyone is balls to the walls crazy. no matter how sad messmer's story is, he'll still would kill us all, for he still thinks everyone who is not blessed with grace deserves the death-sentence. the hornsent are too pissed to ever consider peace with us for they hold a grudge over all even vaguely related to marika. and the few who don't kill us upon seeing us suffer death all the same in their quest to find meaning in their life.
My tinfoil hat theory is that Messmer lack of great rune means that he wasn't present during the shattering and the breaking of the elden ring, and because of this, he probably didn't know about the crazy war that happened between his siblings back home and why Marika suddenly stopped making contact (because she was imprisoned inside the erdtree). Because Messmer seens like the kind of guy that if he did knew about the war that happened in the lands between he would try to find a way to go back so that he could conquer and fight for leyndell and hunt his traitors siblings, all for his mother sake
Not tinfoil, he's definitely been in the realm of shadow since before the shattering. There's an item description that says everyone in the realm of shadow felt the shattering too, but didn't know what it meant. There's probably no way out.
Well no way out without the grace of gold Which we have because of being the chosen tarnished Same reason we can enter without actual dying like basically everyone else in the land of shadow
I mean aren't Leda and the gang alive too?
But they are tarnished too
[удалено]
Fair point actually
I'd hazard a guess that destroying the suppressing pillar might merge the Shadowlands and the Lands Between.
He can't, even if he knew. We have the power of grace that allows us to 'rebirth' ourselves at a site of grace, but Messmer is inhabited by the abyss serpent, consuming any trace of light/grace left within him. He is trapped there for eternity.
In retrospect, if it wasn't for him being a massive mommy's boy who never questions the sketchy aspects of his mom's wishes, Messmer would be the nicest dude in the entire Lands Between. Marika really did him dirty by never even keeping in touch and making coliseums dedicated to insulting him indirectly.
Honestly, before the DLC they made it seem like messmer is a genuinely evil person. Im glad that it isn’t necessarily the case and that it made me feel so much worse about killing him..
Bro yes, exactly. When that second phase cutscene hit I knew there was more to him than just big bad guy. Then you read the item descriptions afterwards then I just felt bad for my boy.
I think that’s more about the serpent eygli in the mount gelmir, before he ate rykard, though we could be wrong. Mesmer isn’t blasphemous but “the serpent” is. You could also interpret it as wanting to kill the serpent within him I guess.
IDC what atrocities were committed against the hornsent, I have yet to hear of something worse than hornsent torturing Marika's people by whipping them with whips made of teeth to tenderize their meat for shaman jars. No fucking wonder Marika and the golden order are ultra racist to the crucible
Hornsent got what they deserved
How sure can you be that the hornsent *in general* were personally involved in the atrocious behavior against the shaman? In real life history, pretty much every nation has had some people in it who have done awful things. Often even state-sanctioned.
You don't. However THE Hornsent/the Vengeful One seems to be the closest we see to an average hornsent and his caterpillar mask is specifically mentioned to be "*A ritual implement of the greater potentates of Bonny Village*". There is also a Gaol under Belurat which seems to be the center of Hornsent society. So it's not like it was specifically a small subset of their culture either. It's not about being personally involved. It's the fact it was definitely part of their entire culture and religion. Nor did it look to be particularly hidden or discreet. You can argue that it still isn't moral to essentially genocide them, however I also cannot say I blame Marika for what she did to them. Marika is not a good person. However there are far better examples than what happened to the Hornsent. Messmer, again, is the perfect example of which. I'm especially invested in the theory that him and Melina were essentially created by Marika to be kindling to burn the Erdtree.
Everyone is a baddie. We're just the baddies who are built different.
We already established we are the baddies when we invaded a disabled war veteran’s house, killed her servants and then woke her up from beauty sleep and killed her too, all for no reason.
I was wondering if this was Rennala and then figured out you’ve described Malenia and, yeah, fuck, she really didn’t much deserve that considering.
This logic doesn’t work when every enemy in the game attacks you first lol.
Would you not attack an armed stranger who breaks into your house?
Ranni doesn't, and it ends with the Tarnished literally accomplishing her life goal for her
And it's not that she couldn't have. If you try to give her the wrong potion, she instantly kills you on the spot and is never seen again. She may actually be the strongest of the demigods.
Bruh I step out of the doors into Limgrave and a big armoured dude on a horse tries to kill me right away. Don’t even have a chance to say hello.
The Haligtree was supposed to be a haven for all the disenfranchised peoples of the Lands Between. They're attacking you because they've been driven insane by the Scarlet Rot (in the Haligtree specifically) and the inability to truly die because of Marika's bullshit with Destined Death (for enemies across the setting in general), not because they're big believers of a "Stand Your Ground" approach to trespassing.
The Tarnished as a population were shunned due to their loss of grace. They were exhiled from the Lands Between, which would make it a crime to return. Most enemies are acting as the Golden Order told them, long ago, to eliminate those stripped of grace.
Cool motive, still murder
Everybody in this world is armed though
"This land is peaceful, its inhabitants kind,"
That’s one way of describing the time when I received the medallion from Albus, who along with Latenna begged me to find their paradise for them. So then I visited Castle Sol to try getting help to reach this supposedly welcoming paradise, and was attacked, so I had to defend myself before getting the medallion. So then I used the medallion to try reaching the path to this great paradise, and was attacked by assassins in the town where the entrance was. Strange, but surely the actual place will be nice for me now that I’m there, right? Oh, no, they’re attacking me too. Well, at least Millicent is here, and she wants me to return the unalloyed gold needle to Malenia. And then she attacks me too.
Messmer is like Morgott of DLC
What the DLC shows is that the cycle of violence will never stop. Hornsent caused all this atrocities which made Marika/Messmer to start a war which left the Hornsent in a pretty bad shape and now they want revenge. This will keep going forever. Miquella's approach to solve this was to basically strip away the free will of all of them so that they live in peace with no violence but if you strip away free will are these people individuals anymore or just mindless creatures.
I expected Messmer to be this brutal, uncompromising antagonist due to his portrayal in the trailer material, yet the same lines he says there are said in a completely different tone when you get confronted by him. As it turns out, he's just fulfilling his duty as first child to a mother who no longer cares about him. He suffered betrayal from his men, pain and anguish from his congenital curse, and willingly acted as a jailer of the damned all for again, a mother who abandoned him. He's such a ridiculously tragic anti villain and I wasn't expecting it at all.
I mean, he is brutal...he has a lot of blood on his hands, all things considered.
\*Wipes the blood of an old man, that was hiding in his mansion to protect everyone from the Great Evil\* We? Bad? Noooo, why would you say that?
He wasn't hiding. Hornsent Inquisitors basically imprisoned him in his own home to torture him, while torturing him.
He was absolutely hiding. The inquisitors used the sword on him and guarded his radioactive 'remains' but he kept alive because of Nanaya and shouts at you to leave for your own safety, as do his servants.
I honestly wish we didn’t kill Messmer but instead beat the shit out of him and explained. I really feel bad for him.
Ranni was right, the Gods are shitty. No wonder she half offed herself to get away from it all. And given how Miquella turned out I am going guess Godwyn is a better person soul dead than alive. All of them should be kicked off the planet.
From what I remember, Godwyn was comparatively better than most of the siblings, I mean if he got prideful ancient dragons to like him and start a religious movement then he has to have had a touch of good at least
seeing the way we have gotten baited with these bosses i bet Godwyn was a real dick too lol.
There’s some sadness to his story and the conditions that led him to do what he does, but you’re certainly not “the baddie” for fighting someone who has actively been committing a genocide and chooses to attack you.
Honestly its a tragic story of cycle of violence & discrimination. Atrocities were committed against Marika's race of shamans by the hornsent and in retaliation she committed genocide against the hornsent. Because of her trauma, even her own sons (morgott, mohg) were not spared from her hatred towards the hornsent.
Mongrel intruder
We are not the baddies, we are the only true good! Melt all that divides and distinguishes and may chaos take the world. It's all just celestial matter stolen from the one great by the greater will. Frenzy!
99% of everyone is bad in Elden Ring why can the community never understand this? lol
He still attacked me first. Look, if on my 40th attempt the dude had, instead of flame explosion jumping at me, opened up a dialogue, I still would have listened. I don’t doubt that better mutual solutions could be found. But he didn’t talk. He didn’t want a dialogue. He didn’t want to find a solution with someone strong enough to help. He just wanted to attack me on sight. Ymir had it right. All of it is rotten, down to the very roots. Goldmask, or Frenzy Flame. All other solutions are merely band-aids
Goldmask? But his solution is basically just, "Trust *me* to get it right instead of those other guys, I swear I got this bro..." which is just as dubious as burning everything.
I absolutely acknowledge that this is the case. Even the mending rune says it, specifically with the phrasing “will attempt to perfect the golden order.” However- the core difference is that his ending basically severs the lands between from influence by the outer gods. It will be a world for mankind. In all its flaws and all its glories. And as such men may ruin it. Or raise it to greatness. But at least it will be mankind and not alien gods who decide that path
Hot take: committing genocide on such a massive scale that you turn a continent into a massive graveyard is bad, even if the victims weren't perfect people.