Video Description

This video is the culmination of hundreds and hundreds of hours of passionate work. I truly hope you all have enjoyed it. Thank you for watching. If you have any questions regarding Elden Ring's lore, please feel free to ask them in the comment section! I plan on making a follow-up video covering minor details I opted not to talk about in this video in order to not distract too much from the main events. I also plan on talking about the story of Nightreign eventually. While I don't like using external sources as direct reference for discussing From Software games' lore - I've seen many get tunnel visioned because of that, same as with hyper-focusing on fan translations of the japanese script -, I of course know that understanding Miyazaki's influences is very important to decipher his works. Here is a comprehensive reading list for this very purpose: -Carl Jung's complete works (Man and His Symbols being the most relevant one); -The Golden Bough by James George Frazer; -The Nag Hammadi; -The Bible; -History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen (especially the section about Uppsala); -A Song of Ice and Fire book series by George R. R. Martin; -Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism; -Manly P. Hall's works (The Secret Teachings of All Ages being the most relevant one); -H.P. Lovecraft's complete works (The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath being the most relevant one); -Ovid's Metamorphosis; -Homer's Odyssey; -Plato's complete works; -Goethe's Faust; -The Berserk manga by Kentaro Miura; -The Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga by Hayao Miyazaki; -The Hermetic Arcanum; -The Dune book series by Frank Herbert; -J R. R. Tolkien's works; This list contemplates only the works which I'm absolutely certain were direct, major sources of inspiration for Miyazaki. I could elaborate in depth on why I selected each one of them. Of course, there's more than a couple dozen books worth of material here, but I assure you reading them all will help you deeply understand Miyazaki's writing. I assembled it off the top of my head, so I surely forgot quite a few; I'll be updating this list when I remember which others I've missed. Of course, I also recommend you to read general stories of world mythologies (especially the Norse, Kabbalah and Shinto), history, anthropology and philosophy. Sometimes I'll be reading a random book about one of these topics and notice a clear parallel to something I saw in one of Miyazaki's games. Timestamps: 0:00 - 4:37 The One Great and the Outer Gods 4:38 - 6:31 A Song of Ice and Fire's influence; Macumber the Demiurge 6:32 - 9:56 Prehistoric times, the Beasts, Hawks, Demi-humans and Dragons 9:57 - 13:19 The Numen and the Shamans 13:20 - 16:16 The Serpent Cult and the Fire Giants 16:17 - 18:14 The Astrologers 18:15 - 24:32 The Fire Giant-Astrologer alliance, and the pre-eclipse age 24:33 - 26:32 The war against the Dragons, and the birth of Placidusax 26:33 - 28:12 The first three generations of Albinaurics 28:13 - 30:23 The Hornsent, Saints, and the original sin 30:24 - 35:45 Marika, the Crucible, Godfrey and the Roundtable Hold 35:46 - 37:26 The war against the Fire Giants 37:27 - 39:31 Messmer, Melina, what are Empyreans 39:32 - 41:27 The next generations of Albinaurics 41:28 - 43:44 The Liurnian Wars, Ranni the Bastard 43:45 - 47:19 Bayle's rebellion, the Dragon Cult and the Dragon Communion 47:20 - 51:49 Messmer's inquisition, the burning of the Greattree, and the birth of the Omen 51:50 - 53:05 The Tarnished and their Long March 53:06 - 54:24 The second Elden Lord and the Empyrean twins 54:25 - 58:46 The Night of the Black Knives, Godwyn and Miquella 58:47 - 1:02:15 The Gloam-eyed Queen and her Godskin Apostles 1:02:16 - 1:10:00 The Shattering 1:09:24 - 1:14:00 Miquella's master plan 1:14:01 - 1:16:07 Marika's end 1:16:08 - 1:24:52 Alternate endings - Age of Stars, Age of the Duskborn, Age of Order, Blessing of Despair and Lord of Frenzied Flame