The Erdtree and Its Symbolism: A Celebration of Arbor Day in Elden Ring

TJ Blackwell: 00:01:10

Foreign death means returning to the erdtree. Have patience until the time comes and the roots call to you. Today we're celebrating Arbor Day.

We're talking about FromSoftware's very own tree of Life. You know, Arbor Day, it's kind of not really indicative of.

There's not a lot of very positive quotes about the herd tree because of the game that it's in. But, you know, and we're just trying to get you to get out there. Maybe plant a tree. Help plant a tree at least. I mean, come on.

It's the least you could do for Arbor Day, but I'm here with the wonderful Christian Ashley. How are you doing, Christian?

Christian Ashley: 00:01:53

Man, I'm doing all right. How about you, tj?

TJ Blackwell: 00:01:55

I'm good. I'm good. And like you said, I'm tj. If you heard me around, I'm usually not in this role.

We're doing this because Christian's schedule has been hectic, and as an. As an Arbor Day gift, I'm hosting for him. So I hope you have your arbitrary gift lined up. Yeah, yeah, you're welcome.

But what have you been geeking out on lately?

Christian Ashley: 00:02:15

Well, the second season of the slightly soft, rebooted Doctor who just came out. First episode was fine. It was a fine addition. Not the best one, not the worst one. How about you?

TJ Blackwell: 00:02:29

Yeah, for me, I'm kind of all over the place. I'm in my Minecraft phase right now, you know, so I'm just play Mike. But it's not.

I don't have it, like, deep in myself, you know, I'm not launching my own world and building in my own world. It's always a friend's world, so it's not quite as bad as it could be. I can only play when he's online, so. Okay, that.

Outside of that Ichi the Witch, I.

Christian Ashley: 00:02:51

Had fallen super behind on series and Jump.

TJ Blackwell: 00:02:55

So good. So good. But if you are on a laptop, please consider rating and reviewing our show on podchaser or Good Pods. This helps the show gain recognition.

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It means a lot, and if you want your name in this slot, you can support the show for as little as $3 a month. And you can do that on Apple Podcast, Captivate, or Patreon. So let's talk about Arbor Day.

And by Arbor Day, I do mean the Erdtree, because, yes, let's be honest, Arbor Day is Arbor Day. But it's a great excuse to talk about our favorite tree. Maybe. Probably not. I don't even think it's my favorite tree in the game, actually.

Christian Ashley: 00:03:55

Ooh. Oh, yeah. I think I know what you mean.

TJ Blackwell: 00:03:58

Yeah. But what's your experience with the Erdtree? What's. What was that like for you, getting a node and ring and discovering this thing?

Christian Ashley: 00:04:06

So caveat here. We're always talking about. When we're talking about Fromsoft game as part of what they build in their world, there aren't quest objectives, markers.

You know, you can go into one area of the game, and suddenly an NPC you're working on a quest with is dead, and you lose access to them if you're not reading the guide online. God help anyone who doesn't do that. And there are crazy people out there who do. And I don't understand it because I'm a completionist.

I want to get everything done. But also, as part of that world is the idea of if you're not reading every single item in the game, you're not going to 100%.

And even then, you're not going to 100% everything that's happening in the game. So I don't know, if you don't go to the Catacombs of Dead Black Skeleton Guardian, who's a. What's it.

And kill 100 skeletons, just get a 1% drop rate of the COD piece of black skeletons, you're not going to know all the lore that's going on in this game. So if we miss something, that's why.

So to actually answer your question, the Erdtree, I mean, it's one of the center points of the game, is you're moving around and you look in the distance and you say, goodness gracious, what that giant gold thing? Oh, it's a giant tree. That's pretty cool.

And as you advance in the game, you get closer to that tree, wondering, when am I actually going to get near this thing? And there's little trees over here to have the golden seeds in them that help my flask. So maybe.

Maybe that improves me even more if I had all that way until you learn this is where everything kind of went down. You've got Marika, Whatever happened with her radagon, whatever happened with him all Merging together, prevent people from using the.

The Erdtree for what it's being used for. We can get that in a second. I think it serves magnificently in the game.

It's like a central focus point of I need to go that way at some point in time. And then when you actually get there, so. Oh, man, this game got a little deeper than I expected.

TJ Blackwell: 00:05:54

Yeah, Yeah. I really think they do a phenomenal job here. When you start Elden Ring, you can play through the tutorial.

If you read the message that says, hey, the tutorials down there and fall into the tutorial cave, you can also. I know I did my first run.

You can choose to get a little key as your starting gift and you can do a whole dungeon before you actually enter the world of Elden Ring.

Christian Ashley: 00:06:22

But when you do, God bless you.

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:24

You take this big, huge elevator up, it's so long, and then you open the door and the skyline is dominated by the Erdtree. And it's immediately like, hey, there it is. That's the goal. You don't know it yet, but of course you're thinking, like, I'm going to go to that tree.

Right. And the entire game, you know, they reference it, they reference the grace of gold.

And for me, I heard the grace of gold and I assumed it had something to do with the giant golden tree in the Skyline Fair. I'm not sure if that's true for all people, but for me it was. You start the game. Here it is. Go there. So that's what. That's what I did.

I tried to get there and I got very distracted because Elden Ring is huge indeed. You know, it's from software. It's open world for real this time.

So the fact that I think they knew they wouldn't have the linearity that usually helps their level design. So we're like, well, we gotta. We gotta make this pretty obvious, you know.

Christian Ashley: 00:07:29

Yeah. Because you'd have to be fooled. Keep going, right. And go to Kylie. This early in the game.

TJ Blackwell: 00:07:34

Yeah.

Christian Ashley: 00:07:34

There's that giant tree you gotta head towards instead.

TJ Blackwell: 00:07:37

Yeah. Or fall into that trap chest, which I'm sure most of us.

Christian Ashley: 00:07:42

I avoided that one.

TJ Blackwell: 00:07:43

I didn't. I did. Not the first time.

Christian Ashley: 00:07:46

What a terrible experience.

TJ Blackwell: 00:07:48

Awful.

Christian Ashley: 00:07:48

Like, oh, gosh.

Only imagine because you go there at a higher level and you haven't even learned that those enemies, if you have the wrong kind of weapon, you're just going to keep whacking them and it's going to bounce off of them. You did like next to nothing to Them.

TJ Blackwell: 00:07:59

Yeah, I love it. I love it. I love the characters I in the game. Just because it's intuitive, like, it makes sense. You're just. You're not thinking about that.

Because they're video game enemies. They're from software enemies. Like, I'm gonna go hit him and it's gonna hurt him.

If you had played Demon Souls before Elden Ring, which most people haven't. Because most people haven't played Demon Souls, even with the remaster, that's a new concept to you for this game.

Because Demon Souls is the only other one where it was that drastic. You know, I walked in there with my. My guts is great sword, you know, my own dragon slayer.

And because I will admit, like, the second thing I did after I got into Elden Ring was look up where that sword is. And then I didn't look anything else up after that for my first playthrough. But I needed the sword. So I looked it up.

Yeah, I'm like, my sword's 20 pounds, you know, and these guys just aren't being hurt by it at all. But it makes sense because you look at them and they're stony. They look like they're hewn from the rock that they're mining.

I love that bit of Elden Ring. But this episode's not about Elden Ring. It's about the Erdtree. Yes. Which is in Elden Ring. Not the same.

So, Christian, why do you think people should care about the Erdtree?

Christian Ashley: 00:09:14

Well, just from a lore perspective, this is kind of what a lot of this hinges on. You've got.

And this is me doing research because I definitely didn't pick these things up in a game because I don't read every item, or if I do, I forget what I just read five minutes later. And you've got this whole spiel of if you actually are paying attention, there's this entity known as the Greater Will.

And it, he, she, whatever, is kind of the originator of the world because there used to be this other entity out there known as the One Great, who's kind of like a almost demiurgic God and you're more gnostic kind of view. And the Greater Will superseded the One Great, tore him open and kind of created creation through that process. There's more nuanced data.

What I'm getting to just. This is for simplicity sake. And as you know, things evolve, things came along, worlds were created.

You know, our world here, where John Elden Ring will live, you have the Greater Will descend.

And part of that is Raising people like Marika into godhood and allowing for the planting of the Erdtree itself and through the process, also forging the Elden Ring, for which this game is named. So if you don't pay attention to that, you're going to play the same game I did.

But you're not going to get as much of an appreciation for why things are happening. Why are people fighting over this thing? Where did this giant tree come from? What are the mythological references that George R.R.

martin was using here instead of actually finishing the book series he's known for?

TJ Blackwell: 00:10:46

You know, I think rightfully so, I do think Elden Ring, if he ever finishes Game of Thrones, I think Elden Ring will still be better than that last book.

Christian Ashley: 00:10:55

Oh, no doubt. Like, I'm glad he worked with it. Like, you can see his hand here. You obviously where his hand was told. No, and I'm grateful for that.

But for the most part, he works really well when he's making a mythology.

TJ Blackwell: 00:11:05

Yeah, yeah. And it's really funny. You can just. If you've read George R.R.

martin, you can tell that he came up with some of this stuff, because I wish I'd written down a list of the names in Elden Ring, which is a lot of what he. He had to do with it. But we've got America. America, Merriga, Melana, Melina, Millicent Millennia. Whole bunch of M's, whole bunch of R's.

Radagon, Radon, Godric Godfrey. Godric Godfrey. God. There's so many ridiculous George R.R. martin shenanigans. Of course.

Christian Ashley: 00:11:46

Yes.

TJ Blackwell: 00:11:47

Which is J, R, M. Yes. Grm. So it's very subtle, really. But, you know, you mentioned, you know, inspired mythologies.

This is, of course, referential to Yggdrasil, the tree of life from Norse mythology. And it. It's different.

It's definitely different because if you do some digging and you listen to the many hours of Erdtree, specifically lore dumps on YouTube, because that's really what it takes to understand what we're talking about here. We do not have enough show.

Christian Ashley: 00:12:26

Yeah. Not possible without Vaatividya.

TJ Blackwell: 00:12:28

Yeah, Vaatividya. Who's the other one? Hawkshawn or something. He's got good videos, Right. It's just less recognizable. They have put hours of research into this.

And the urn tree is actually like a parasite and it's absorbing the life from the people in the lands between. It's a bad thing. The Erdtree is. Is bad. But you have to suffer its consequences until you can no longer Suffer its consequences.

Which, if you're not aware, we are going to spoil this.

Christian Ashley: 00:14:00

Oh yes.

TJ Blackwell: 00:14:00

Because yeah, the, the main difference to me what makes the Erdtree stand out from other, you know, Yggdrasil inspired trees is that our main objective with the Erdtree is to burn it down.

Christian Ashley: 00:14:14

And you get to choose how you do that.

TJ Blackwell: 00:14:17

Yep. So yeah, it's different.

Christian Ashley: 00:14:20

What about you?

TJ Blackwell: 00:14:21

Is there any other like Igdrasil esque tree in games that you can think of? You know, I like, I don't want to count God of War because that's literally Yggdrasil. That's not. That's not like inspired. That just is Yggdrasil.

Christian Ashley: 00:14:34

It's kind of cheating. I can't think of any off the top of my head. But like you make. You raise a really good point.

As opposed to what Idris is supposed to be in your Norse mythologies at least agreed upon canon. It's supposed to be kind of life giving, life bearing and it holds up the nine worlds. 10 if you're in Marvel. I think that's the Retcon.

And giving them their own spheres where they're supposed to be. You've got that nutty little squirrel that's always trying to chomp on it. What is his name? Like Ratatoskr or something like that.

There's also a serpent down there. It's also a way to get knowledge and all this mess. It's supposed to be kind of a crucial good figure overall.

Verses we have here where it comes off kind of in a sense like an angel of light. In many respects that's actually, you know, a Satan or demon in disguise where it gives you good things. You can attain, you know, godhood.

But it's also leeching away from the world itself, empowering itself.

And you have the, the conflict between the two fingers and the three fingers over whether the world needs to burn or whether just this tree needs to burn. And we can start over from the ashes because we have seeds everywhere and maybe we can make a better tree this time or. Who cares about that at all?

You just want to bring darkness and destruction in the world or you just really want your wife, who they really love you, so you go on her path and get a cool sword out of it and a marriage.

TJ Blackwell: 00:16:00

Yeah. And you go to space. It's the best ending.

Christian Ashley: 00:16:04

Oh, absolutely.

TJ Blackwell: 00:16:06

It's easily the best ending and the coolest. You do the most stuff, you know.

Christian Ashley: 00:16:11

All those cool places you get to explore.

TJ Blackwell: 00:16:13

Yeah, yeah. Some of the best areas in the game yes. And some of the best boss fights in the game.

Shout out Radon, which, you know, we're already spoiling it, so shout out to the first radon fight in the lands between. Man, what a. That shocked me. Getting to the end of the dlc. It's like, oh, it's Radon again. Awesome.

Christian Ashley: 00:16:33

Oh, no. And he's.

TJ Blackwell: 00:16:35

Oh, gosh.

Christian Ashley: 00:16:36

Oh, man, he's with Mikkela. We thought Mikaela was a good guy. Apparently not.

TJ Blackwell: 00:16:40

No. McKellar. Just like the Erdtree, actually. And I think it's a really important analogy because Miquella, we see far from grace, whatever.

But the public perception of Miquella is exactly like the public perception of the urn tree because it's worshiped.

Christian Ashley: 00:16:55

It's.

TJ Blackwell: 00:16:55

This is good. This is foundational to our country, our world, and the whole time it's got a much more sinister plot, you know?

Christian Ashley: 00:17:05

Absolutely.

TJ Blackwell: 00:17:06

Really good, really good dlc. Also, the DLC does have.

I want to say, I think DLC has my second favorite tree in the game, the Shadow tree, the Skidoo tree, if you will, which is a failed attempt to grow an erdtree.

Christian Ashley: 00:17:21

Yes. And it's no less magnificent.

Even though it's its total and complete opposite, it's still serving many of the same narrative beats that the erdtree itself is doing, just in a corrupted place. That was where our deities in this world kind of came from in the first place.

And how that went to hell and how they abandoned it to its own and started massacres and genocides over there because they didn't want it to be there anymore because of massacres and genocides that happened to their own people. That dlc, if, once again, if you're actually paying attention, if you're putting the work in, you're going to get a lot more out of it.

TJ Blackwell: 00:17:57

Yeah, yeah. And it's. I don't know, I love the style, the storytelling style of FromSoftware. But that's.

That's probably because I was sort of raised on it, you know, like played Dark Souls 2 for like 4,000 hours in high school. It was like 2,000 hours. But it's Dark Souls too, so that counts as four.

Christian Ashley: 00:18:19

Yeah. I have high praise for this game and other games like it. This is one thing that always irks me is that I have to look things up.

Like, look, I don't need things handed to me on a silver platter. Like, just spoon feed me, like, make me do a little bit of work. Sure. But this is too much work.

This is how the Hell was I supposed to know I was supposed to do that?

Why would I talk to this person over here who has nothing to do with this person over here, so that I can advance both of their quests even though they have no knowledge of each other as far as I know. And how does this person relate to this person? We'll get to who. How Marika and Radagon are the same person, but also not the same person in a bit.

It's infuriating. But when you actually read what's happening, I'm fine with it. It's just too much to actually get there. Once again, shout out Vatividya.

Without you, I'd be lost completely.

TJ Blackwell: 00:19:07

See, I think. I really do think it's a good thing for the game and especially in Elden Ring, in the, you know, in the Soul series. Sekiro. Well, Sekiro is different.

Bloodborne Sekiro is like, completely different. Still a great game. Yes, but absolutely, you know, you actually do get to just be a part of the story and not just, you know, your story.

I think it encourages exploration in a way that is really unique because it's not requiring you to do the exploration, but if you find something that confuses you, you're like, oh, what did I miss? So you go look for what you missed. Least I did, because I don't know, that's. That's the way I like to experience the game.

It's clearly not for everybody, but I like it a lot. It, you know, gets you invested in the world and it.

I feel like the information sticks a lot better when you have to go find it and read it for yourself. It also, to me, feels like kind of like being an archaeologist, but really easy.

Like, you know, like, I'm not trying to downplay archaeology because, you know, you dig up stuff and then that's it. You have the stuff. We get descriptions from the stuff. It's awesome. It's great. Yeah, Yeah. I like it a lot.

Christian Ashley: 00:20:27

I like how you word that. I mean, because there are different ways you can play this game, and they're all perfectly valid.

There's the I'm just playing the game for the game and combat, and then I don't care nothing about the story. There's the people who care more about the story and not the combat.

There's people like me who care enough to look at certain places and stop if I don't know where I'm going unless I look it up. And there's more people like you. It's like I'm Looking at every nook and cranny, I'm going to get every single thing out there.

Because I'm beyond a completionist. I'm a fromsoft completionist.

And all those games, like you're going to get something different out of the story, but it's perfectly fine to do it that way.

TJ Blackwell: 00:21:02

Yeah, it's really special to me. Just because you get rewarded. You find a lot of stuff that a lot of people would miss.

You know, if in one run of Elden Ring, you can finish the game with 3 max level normal weapons and 2 max level what were called somber weapons. But only if you explore. Only if you really look for it.

Christian Ashley: 00:21:25

Yes.

TJ Blackwell: 00:21:27

So it warrants you. And it does even more so in the dlc, which a lot more people I think had to look up how to do it in the dlc because both of my roommates did.

And I was like, I'm just playing the game. I just found all the fragments because I found them.

Christian Ashley: 00:21:44

Well, it doesn't help either in that special circumstance that if you advance too far through no fault of your own, you're cut out of like 75, 80 of what you could do because there's a shattering or however the heck they word it. It's like, how was I supposed to know that?

TJ Blackwell: 00:22:00

So good that when that happened, I was actually watching my roommate play it. Like, because, you know, he was just. He was just trying to finish the game. I'm trying to.

Christian Ashley: 00:22:08

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:22:09

Play the game, you know, the whole game. And I saw that happen and I was kind of shocked. Like, it was. It was amazing to see. It was like, oh, like, it scared me a little bit.

Christian Ashley: 00:22:20

Oh, that's how, you know, like things are about to go down. You better get ready.

TJ Blackwell: 00:22:24

Yeah, it's so good. But back to the Erdtree and its relation to Yggdrasil.

It does actually kind of fulfill the same role as Yggdrasil in the sense of holding up the realms because, you know, the branches of interest of the Erdtree, they don't exactly hold up the consecrated snow field or Farum Azula, but they do hold secrets up there. And I don't know what they are because I don't think they're gonna release another dlc. But I bet there's something up there. However, it's gotta be.

Right. But it'd have to be a prequel. Yeah. Then you know. Yeah, let's see.

Christian Ashley: 00:23:04

Unless something wacky happens, which I wouldn't put past them.

TJ Blackwell: 00:23:08

But if you remember about 22 minutes ago I mentioned the Roots Once you start going underground and you find the roots of the Erdtree, you'll find that. That quote that I said at the beginning, which you just find on a soul, a collectible soul. It's in the description. You find death.

And not just, you know, dead people. Death as a manifestation. The destined death even. Which is actually a different place. But like, this is where. It's a whole thing.

Christian Ashley: 00:23:41

Don't worry about it.

TJ Blackwell: 00:23:42

It's a whole thing. And it's under where Godfrey died. Which is what triggered the shattering full circle. Like a ring. An Elden ring, as it were.

But also another fantastic area to explore. And the Erdtree's presence in the world is made extremely clear. Everything is connected to the Erdtree in one way or another.

And down here, you see, you'll find a couple of Crucible Nights, which you'll find around. But in the burrows, I'll say it's called.

Christian Ashley: 00:24:18

Sounds right.

TJ Blackwell: 00:24:19

What is that area called?

Christian Ashley: 00:24:23

Yeah. Fia's quest line. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:24:27

You find two named Crucible Knights. And their purpose was to combat the Erdtree. And you're like, that's interesting. How weird.

And if you're down here, you already kind of know that's what you're doing. That is your goal. And this is one of the ways you can do it is by bringing back the Desmond Death and doing Fia's questline. And I don't know.

I think it's the bad ending. So I don't do it. Oh.

Christian Ashley: 00:24:52

Yeah. I do it to get the runes and explore. But I don't pick that ending when it's my time before.

TJ Blackwell: 00:24:59

Yeah.

Christian Ashley: 00:24:59

The end.

TJ Blackwell: 00:25:00

Like, I'll go to fight Fortissax, but I don't want that ending, so. And speaking of endings and the Erdtree. The two fingers convinced Marika to nurture the Erdtree or grow the Erdtree or. It's a mess.

The Erdtree started as the Crucible. And you're gonna have to go look it up. It's a lot.

Christian Ashley: 00:25:25

Yes.

TJ Blackwell: 00:25:25

But the three fingers. The secret other three fingers. Not. They don't make a hand because they're all. They're all digits. There's no thumb. But the three fingers.

You find out in the Your pursuit of the many endings of Elden Ring. The Frenzied Flame ending. There's a different way to burn down the Erdtree.

Christian Ashley: 00:25:47

Yes. That doesn't require to sacrifice of Molina.

TJ Blackwell: 00:25:49

Yeah. We can make this whole place crazy with the Frenzied Flame.

So it does matter what you use to Burn down the Tree of Life, you know, the focal point of this entire world. Because if you just go the. The standard route throughout, most people will do, especially on their first playthrough.

You will sacrifice your maiden, your traveling companion, what have you, your Emerald Herald. Which is what she wants. Keeper. Which is what she wants. That's what she wants to happen. And she considers it a great slight against her if you don't.

Christian Ashley: 00:26:24

Yes.

TJ Blackwell: 00:26:25

Yeah, but it's awesome, so it's worth doing at least once. But you will sacrifice her to the forge of the Giants. And then. Yeah. Trees burned down. Awesome.

Christian Ashley: 00:26:36

Cool.

TJ Blackwell: 00:26:37

Now you can walk in there and kill God.

Christian Ashley: 00:26:41

Typical Japanese rpg.

TJ Blackwell: 00:26:43

Typical Japanese rpg. But at least in this one, you're not a child.

Christian Ashley: 00:26:47

Yeah, okay.

TJ Blackwell: 00:26:47

You know, so I got. You know, I get it a little bit more. You're not Ness.

But generally, that is the point of Elden Ring, is to go above the cycle and break the chains that are keeping the people. And I don't know, it's right to say, but enslaved, they're not free. They're living. They're happy. No one can die.

Well, they're not really happy, but no one can die. You know, that's pretty much all you need, right? Wrong.

So everyone has their own reasons for you to break the cycle and become the Elven Lord and dictate how the world progresses. Which is why I burn it all down and move away with Ronnie. That's not my problem. I just got here.

Christian Ashley: 00:28:25

Yeah, and that's a huge part of the conflict, too. You bring up the Fingers.

We've got the two fingers who've been guiding people in their own ways and manipulating all these different demigods to do their bidding. And then as you get also into the DLC shadow of the Erdtree, you also meet the mother of all the fingers.

And there's a huge implication there that she is actually a goddess born of the greater will for some unknown purpose, perhaps to do his will in the world. And that's what's caused everything to go to hell, is people listening to people they shouldn't listen to.

And of course, the three fingers ain't much better because in their idea, it's kind of like the Altmer in Elder Scrolls is the idea of we're in this mortal plane, we shouldn't be. We were all complete at one point in time. We were in the heavens. So we need to get rid of this world right here.

And then everything will go back to the way it was. We'll ascend and we'll Be pure spirit beings in a sense.

TJ Blackwell: 00:29:23

Yeah.

Christian Ashley: 00:29:23

And if you're not paying attention, that sounds, you know, pretty, you know, enticing. Until you realize what you have to do to get all the way down there to the. The literal depths. Like you have to.

There is no way of accidentally picking that ending. You have to choose.

TJ Blackwell: 00:29:38

Not one.

Christian Ashley: 00:29:39

And yeah, it causes death and destruction along the way. Yeah, yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:29:44

Like then immediately after you do it, Melina shows up and she's like, hey, man, what's up? Why did you do that? What is wrong with you?

Christian Ashley: 00:29:54

And then two. I mean, as well. Like we learn through the story as well through reading the item descriptions, God help us.

That they have manipulated Marika, who has become essentially the goddess, the God of that world, to do what she does. But not just her, also all the other demigods and as well as Radag, who is not her first husband, but the second one that she had. Oh, no, no, sorry.

Ratigan was with Renala. Then he went to Marika. Sorry, I'm getting all my R's and M's and G's mixed up. God, how did that ever happen? Imagine that.

And through this process, you meet people like Goldmask, who is just a guy just standing. He's look withered, decayed. And he's got his promised disciple there right beside him the whole time.

And all he does is just t pose in front of the erdtree, worshiping it, reflecting on it, being scientific about matters, being faithful in his religion. And as part of their questline, you learn Radagon and Marika are one and the same, but they're also not.

And Marika caused a shattering because she was kind of done with everything. But Ratigan still wants to protect it because they had a huge conflict over that. So while she's stuck up there, he is until you release her.

And then you have to have the final fight with them until you get to the Elden beast, which is the true form of the Elden ring in many respects, thanks to the greater will.

TJ Blackwell: 00:31:19

And also, I'm glad you brought up met here. The finger. The fingers.

Christian Ashley: 00:31:25

Yeah, yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:31:26

The giant hand monster, the mother of fingers.

It's also implied pretty heavily that that is the kind of thing that Radahn was trying to prevent was, you know, so foreign alien beast coming down and taking over the world.

That's what Radahn learned gravity magic for was to hold back the stars, which include these threats, which also include other threats that you do get to fight. Both Estelles are these things. I just Radon is such a good character and his story becomes so tragic.

Christian Ashley: 00:31:59

Oh, yeah. Just manipulated at every turn.

TJ Blackwell: 00:32:02

Yeah. Even before the DLC came out, you. You kill Radahn and then meteors just start destroying stuff.

And it's a video game, so, you know, not that much, but a lot more than they would in most video games. Because after you kill him, there's a huge hole in the ground and you go down there and there's like six more areas to find.

Christian Ashley: 00:32:23

All part of Rani's quest to defy the greater will, to defy the two fingers, to bring a new hopeful age of humanity. The age of stars, where there's no guarantee things will be better. But there's no guarantee things will get worse either.

Which some people and me take as a better way to end the story than just dealing with the erdtree itself.

TJ Blackwell: 00:32:42

Yeah. Hey, I got to marry the pretty blue girl. Yeah, that's a happy ending.

Christian Ashley: 00:32:46

At least one consort and I didn't have to mentally, mentally manipulate her to become my promised consort. Unlike a certain other someone.

TJ Blackwell: 00:32:53

Yeah, yeah, chew on that. Also, the DLC makes me feel a lot better about killing Millennia.

Christian Ashley: 00:32:59

Oh, gosh.

TJ Blackwell: 00:33:01

Also, the fact that I like Radon makes me feel a lot better about killing Millennia. Because she deserved it. Every bit of it.

Christian Ashley: 00:33:10

She deserves it for how many times it took me to kill that woman.

TJ Blackwell: 00:33:12

Yeah, I don't have that problem, Waterfall.

Christian Ashley: 00:33:15

I'm a dead man.

TJ Blackwell: 00:33:16

She just has no poise. You just hit her with a 20 pound sword twice. Because I.

My build really comes to fruition in new game plus where I can have two of them power stance them. It's. It's so fun. It's such an easy way to play the game. Like it? I don't want to say it's dead easy, but it really is.

When you're dealing that much poise damage, you just kind of walk up to something and boom. Then it's. Then it's poison broken and then you just do it again. It's great. It works really well. On Millennia.

I struggled not nearly as much as most people on that boss fight just because I love heavy weapons and she's got my number.

Christian Ashley: 00:33:53

But all it takes is a killer once.

TJ Blackwell: 00:33:55

Yeah. Yeah. You have to kill me every time. I have to kill you once. So it's really not fair. But she definitely deserved to die.

Not only for what she did to Radahn, but for that absolute villain that she was trying to protect. And also failed, by the way. Like, why are you still. I have never known defeat.

Like, I know like no one's ever killed you, but your brother is not in that cocoon. Yeah. Nope. And you definitely have lost.

Christian Ashley: 00:34:25

Then you learn too. We all thought Moog was just this evil guy just dealing with blood and everything. It turns out he was also being manipulated. McKellar.

How the heck you want to pronounce that name?

TJ Blackwell: 00:34:35

Yeah, Awful.

Christian Ashley: 00:34:37

Still a bad guy, but was made worse because of someone else.

TJ Blackwell: 00:34:40

Moog and all the omens were just kind of mistreated because they were different. And Mick was like, I could use that. I can use that against him. Everybody always already hates him. I mean, just.

Christian Ashley: 00:34:53

And then I'll. I'll shed parts of myself just to be all noble as thing goes on. As things go on in the game, it's like, okay, I know what you're about.

TJ Blackwell: 00:35:02

Yeah, yeah. Charlatan. A liar and a charlatan. But if you're still keeping up, that's pretty much the plot of Elden Ring as far as I'm concerned, at least. But I.

I do feel confident saying Elden Ring for me is a 10 out of 10. Do you disagree?

Christian Ashley: 00:35:21

No. On this one? No. We are in complete agreement.

As much as there are things about the game that frustrate me to know in certain boss battles that, you know, I go and murder some Japanese businessmen and developers for what they did. Look, this is a fun game. It's rewarding when you actually look and explore places. It cares about you in that way.

It doesn't care about you as far as like telling you where quests are and how you can advance them. That's what the wiki's for. Thank you for extra life. You have a time saver in that regard. But the combat's amazing.

You could switch up and do anything and it be viable and you have. If something is really hurting you, there are other ways that you can change your build.

And it's in game possible to do it, so it even helps you in that regard. You can be an invader. You can be someone who just punishes invaders. You can. It's a ton of fun.

Depending on how you want to play the game, there's multiple ways to do it. Like we mentioned earlier, like, this is a 10 out of 10 game. Hands down.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:15

Hands down. No argument. Don't try, I'll smack you. What even is there to say? This is the culmination of FromSoftware's many years of beating down the downtrodden.

Oh gosh.

Christian Ashley: 00:36:28

I certainly lost more hair as a result of them.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:30

Yeah. And as far as I'm concerned. Dark Souls 2 was my favorite Souls game until Elden Ring came out. And then we've.

We've done a bit of Dark Souls 2 revisionist history and people are coming around on it again. But very famously is the most hated entry in the game in the series.

Christian Ashley: 00:36:49

Yes.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:52

Yeah, it is. But then people started saying Elden Ring is Dark Souls 2 too, because it is.

Christian Ashley: 00:36:58

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:59

Yeah.

A lot of the things people like so much about Elden Ring were in Dark Souls 2 and they took them out for Dark Souls 3 because people didn't like Dark Souls 2.

Christian Ashley: 00:37:07

I'll say outside of 3, it's the one I played the most out in the Dark Souls trilogy is two.

TJ Blackwell: 00:37:13

Yeah. I think one is the worst. That's not what this is about, though. That.

Christian Ashley: 00:37:17

That. That is the definition of punishment.

TJ Blackwell: 00:37:20

One's the worst. Dark Souls 1 is the worst.

Christian Ashley: 00:37:22

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:37:23

In the series for me. I understand if you like it more than two. I'm not. I'm not saying that's a crazy opinion. I know most people like it more than two.

Two is my favorite one, though. So I think this whole episode's kind of been at least a little bit philosophical, a little bit theological.

Because what Elden Ring kind of feels like to me is what I could easily see it being mistaken as like the church, because, I mean, it is a church, you know.

Christian Ashley: 00:37:51

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:37:52

And it's kind of easy to see how, you know, through the lens of the game, how easy it would be for an establishment like the church to manipulate the public. Thankfully, the church is not the golden order. Maybe if they were, we would have cooler swords. I'm not saying I would prefer it.

Christian Ashley: 00:38:08

But in front games, you've got the healing church bloodborne.

You've got the various religious entities in the Dark Souls series over the different countries as time progresses in the age of, you know, fire and dark. Yeah, Age of Fire and multiple games. And in here. Yeah.

It's easy to see why they're being manipulated because they're told something they want to believe in. This tree is life giving. This tree is going to preserve you. You need to protect it. Here's the right way. You can do magic.

Here's the wrong way to do magic. And then you've got Turtle, Pope, Muriel, my guy always being there. Also, they say it's a heresy. But you know what?

You're my dude, so I'm not going to say anything against you. Unlike everyone else, you bring it to best dog in the game.

TJ Blackwell: 00:38:53

Best dog in the game. I've seen so many shirts that are like, you know, dog. And it's Muriel, the. The tortoise pope. And I kind of want to get one.

I'm not a big graphic tea guy, but yeah, I love that. That's such a good bit. But we are going to start wrapping up here and we do have a bonus question.

We're going to answer this at the end for all of our. All of our supporters. And today it's going to be which from Software World would you most like to live in? Why? Not a lot of good options.

Christian Ashley: 00:39:24

No, absolutely not.

TJ Blackwell: 00:39:25

Not a lot of good options. But you have anything to recommend for us here today?

Christian Ashley: 00:39:29

Yeah, I'm back home right now. My brother and niece came as well. So he, my dad and I, they had not seen the first season of Last of Us. Rewatched it with them.

Really enjoyed doing that. The first episode just came out and we're still at the part where things are okay. After this. I'm probably going to lose interest, but keep watching.

So right now is a good time to be a Last of Us fan after this releases. Probably not.

TJ Blackwell: 00:39:57

Yeah, yeah, I can see that. For me, I've already mentioned it a couple of times because I was geeking out on it, but Ichi the Witch, you gotta tap in each of the witch is good.

Ichi the witch is really 37 chapters. Yeah.

So far it's dealing with kind of a similar thing like we were talking about earlier, where, you know, false God or, you know, false hope or at least in this very moment, that's what they're. They're dealing with. You know, there's a magic posing as doing something good, but it's actually horribly bad for everyone.

Really good series if you're not a manga reader. Not sure if it'd be a good first one, but it definitely won't be a bad first one.

Christian Ashley: 00:40:37

No, there's way worse ones.

TJ Blackwell: 00:40:39

Way worse ones. If you are on a laptop, please consider rating reviewing the show on podraiser. GoodPods.

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