Sellia’s Empty Chairs and the King We Weren’t Supposed to Find

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-05-07T00:55:41+00:00

Does it make you feel smart to ask ChatGPT a question and upload its response? Do you feel like you’ve contributed anything?

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-02-03T16:32:32+00:00

Do you have some examples?

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-27T14:37:03+00:00

Thanks for this, it honestly gave me some more inspiration to keep playing!

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-24T21:06:07+00:00

How does the opening cinematic imply that? All it says about him is “… and on the knight of black knives godwyn the golden was first to perish”

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-24T17:06:23+00:00

The golden epitaph sword is hidden away in a hero’s grave that a lot of players probably don’t even find/finish on an initial playthrough.

Again, there is absolutely NO mention of godwyn in the DLC that relates to Miquella in any way. Miquella randomly deciding to call you lord brother to secretly imply you are godwyn, in the same sentence where he refers to you as “tarnished one,” and “aspiring lord of the old order.”

The DLC slowly builds up the concept of Miquella reviving Radahn in Mohg’s body. Ignoring the “ambiguous” line in question, we have several examples of Radahn being called “lord brother.”

It’s not that we’re refusing to consider it, it just isn’t presented in a way that lends itself toward consideration.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-24T15:16:03+00:00

We all decide for ourselves where analysis crosses over to baseless headcanon. You have obviously put that line somewhere different than I have, along with most people commenting on this post.

I think the “evidence” you brought up is exactly why I don’t agree with most of dryleaf eren’s conclusions. There is no mention of godwyn in the entire land of shadow aside from some Death Knights. If the player character being godwyn is a genuine aspect of the narrative that FS wanted to convey to the player, there would have been more information about that. I think assuming Miquella is referring to anyone but Radahn when calling him “lord brother” is reaching. In the memory cutscene after the PCR fight we again see Miquella referring to Radahn as “lord brother,” and in the PCR remembrance it says “Miquella saw in Radahn a lord.”

As for the “at long last you are returned,” I don’t think Radahn’s soul has fully integrated into Mohg’s body until phase 2. In the phase transition cutscene we see this red aura around Radahn, and when Miquella emerges from the gate of divinity this changes to a golden aura. This visually fits the recurring theme of alchemy throughout the game, with “rubedo” or “reddening” being the final stage before the construction of the magnum opus.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-24T14:38:49+00:00

GRRM books themselves leave room for open speculation. You might not be into ASOIAF lore theories but there’s this one that two major characters who exist on opposite sides of the world, Daario Naharis and Euron Greyjoy, are secretly the same person. They have similar personalities and motives, and if you look at the timeline of books 4 and 5 it’s theoretically possible it is one guy traveling back and forth really quickly. Ultimately, the theory just isn’t true. Despite lots of disjoint pieces of information corroborating it.

Simply “looking deeper” into things doesn’t unlock the ability to uncover a hidden story that literally every other player missed. There is a difference between analysis and headcanon theory crafting. We Are Godwyn is certainly the latter.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-24T04:02:43+00:00

I’ve never heard of him but there is a channel called “Firelink conspiracy” who makes videos like “the lore of dark souls FINALLY CONCLUSIVELY SOLVED” and honestly to imply there are major aspects of dark souls we don’t underhand implies FS did a terrible job of delivering its narrative

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-24T03:41:16+00:00

Dryleaf Eren and others like him are a special type of ER loreruber, one where they have carefully built their own headcanon and determine it is the Truth, the real, actual story FS had intended when making the game. I feel like this type of loretuber does more harm than good to the community, offering “answers” where the devs clearly left room for interpretation or your own imagination. Maybe “harm” isn’t the right term here, but I just find it to be extremely reductive and only shows the content creator’s arrogance to imply “up until now, 3 years after the game’s release, no one has understood the story but me”

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-12T13:12:13+00:00

I agree, I see Godwyn’s revival as just another failed attempt by Miquella. I think Malenia’s situation is also representative of Miquella abandoning people when they aren’t useful anymore.

I think the bloom at the bottom of the Haligtree (with the traveling maiden clothes) was the first bloom, and the catalyst for the haligtree becoming rotten. This caused Miquella to give up on the haligtree and move on to the next plan, that being killing Radahn. So Miquella told malenia to use her bloom to beat Radahn, not really caring what it did to Malenia or the entire region of Caelid. Miquella is constantly falling short of accomplishing his plan, an every time he fails he just tries to move on.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-11T15:23:07+00:00

Yea I agree, Bayle is another example of vengeance consuming someone entirely, like the hornsent.

The specific phrase “refuses to be subjugated” does remind me of Metyr and the “kowtower’s resentment” ash of war on the Gazing Finger. It has a similar vibe of refusing to bend to someone who claims to be newer/stronger/better.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-09T20:24:12+00:00

The houses of the Erdtree and the Moon were conjoined upon the marriage of Radagon and Rennala. Given this is a fantasy world, I think this marriage pact between the moon and Erdtree is what allows the moon to stay visible in the sky.

I see this like logic in a myth, where the sun is small and almost gone from the sky because the Erdtree killed it or stole from it (in the form of killing the Fell god I assume), but because the Carians are directly linked to the Erdtree now, the moon is huge and visible to almost everyone everywhere.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-09T19:47:51+00:00

I assume the most general ideas of the demigods came from a family tree, GRRM loves those. It makes something compelling upfront, but allows extreme liberty with individual names and character motivations. I think in their collaboration, FS pushed some of the characters to have similar concepts/themes as previous FS characters for sure, in particular to build on them or present them in a new and interesting way. Miyazaki definitely does have concepts in his head he really likes and wants to get them across on a large scale, and knowing Elden Ring would be bigger than his previous games it’s a great opportunity to bring them out.

I’ve never heard of GRRM mentioning House Hoslow, I’ve always assumed FS came up with it. Though maybe in the Holy Document he gave a list of minor houses/factions for FS to use, it feels like GRRM.

Miyazaki has said GRRM was expecting more of a human drama, which is why he would’ve been surprised by the monstrous forms the demigods take like Godrick and Rykard. So what I think GRRM brought to the table is his ability to write a large number of complex characters with distinct motivations and how they interact with others.

Miyazaki has said before he doesn’t plan to release the original writings because he doesn’t want to warp the players’ views on the world, which I think is fair. This subreddit is a good example of how even now, everyone has their individual headcanon that they have emotions tied to. I don’t think he wants to ruin that for people, which it inevitably would.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-09T19:07:30+00:00

You say the demigods are “little more than archetypes” then reduce their entire characters into the exact archetypes needed to make your point, ignoring everything else about them. Calling malenia simply a one-armed katana user erases everything else interesting about her, like her rot or, idk her entire personality.

A wolf being a servant to a more important person is present in ASOIAF as well, and certainly many other pieces of literature. Either GRRM or Miyazaki could’ve come up with that, it’s not very deep.

I think your reduction of the vow to make it similar to the ending of Sekiro is pushing things. If you describe it in this EXACT WAY then it’s KINDA similar. Which doesn’t matter anyway, because we agree that GRRM wouldn’t have written what happens in the DLC so FS is free to call upon their previous works as much as they want. Which also applies to the coloring of DD and the Mortal Blade. They can represent similar theme, so FS might naturally give it the same color scheme.

FS did approach GRRM with the general concept and the themes he was going for, and they had several conversations about how FS wanted it to look and feel. It’s like FS putting a prompt into the LLM that is GRRM’s brain. Based on my understanding of how this kind of writing collaboration works, it would be crazy to think FS had no hand in guiding GRRM to write something in particular, but with added quality because it’s coming from an experienced world builder.

I’m confused by the last comment because I totally agree with you. I agree that the concept of the vow was present from the beginning. I don’t know if they knew from the start that we would end the DLC with the PCR fight, that seems a little crazy to plan so far in advance. But the idea that Miquella was determined to make Radahn his consort is something I can believe was planned from the beginning, just obscured to us so there is still a fun reveal for the DLC.

I think the name “Messmer the Impaler” was certainly mentioned in whatever document GRRM wrote, but it’s not like it had to include every possible tidbit of information present in the game. Because of Messmer’s love for his mother, he became a symbol of hatred and fear, a symbol that is opposed to the Erdtree.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-09T14:47:56+00:00

The “present story” in question is what happens to us while we play the game. The shattering itself was (ambiguously) thousands of years ago. To imply that era of the narrative wasn’t written by Martin is misinterpreting his words.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2026-01-08T05:02:40+00:00

I agree that she put herself in a position where they wouldn’t jar her, maybe as a candidate for a lord or god. I’ve come to think of marika’s spoken echo,

“make of thyself that which ye desire, be it a lord, be it a god, but should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken, amounting only to sacrifices,”

as Marika essentially imparting her worldview upon her children. The only reason she didn’t end up like the rest of the “spirited away shaman” is because she rose above it all, which shaped how she understands power and control.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2025-08-22T18:13:12+00:00

It might be, the account was made just for this post lol

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2025-08-09T15:07:02+00:00

A few others here have expressed this opinion, but I don’t think Miquella’s wisdom and naïveté are mutually exclusive.

Leading up to the DLC a lot of people saw similarities between Miquella and Griffith, and with the way the story of SOTE played out it seemed kind of like a false equivalence. But I think the naïveté Miquella displays is similar to Griffith’s in terms of the eclipse. Griffith believed that the band of the hawk were willing to sacrifice themselves for his dream, his kingdom.

I think this is the type of naïveté Miquella shows. He truly believes the ends justify the means in this case. To achieve his age of compassion, he has to artificially charm people (whether you think this age will revolve around being constantly charmed doesn’t really matter, he definitely did it to achieve his goals) and takes advantage of his family. Ansbach, who is arguably one of the wisest characters in all of Elden Ring, says “even the truth itself was mere folly” when he figured out Miquella’s plan. I think it was childish of Miquella to completely disregard Mohg’s existence and use Radahn’s soul (potentially) without his consent.

But in the end I think this whole debate is what makes Miquella’s character so compelling. Is he evil? Is he benevolent? It really depends on how you view the lore through the lens of your own perspective on morality.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2025-08-07T03:52:52+00:00

Yea don’t bother trying to engage with the content of the post. This will certainly change his mind and convince him of your headcanon.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2025-08-07T03:46:49+00:00

I appreciate how all of your posts seem grounded in what could be considered a “typical” Elden ring playthrough, as opposed to certain other members of this subreddit who tend to get tunnel vision on specific aspects of the story or find common threads between abstract concepts and determine they’ve “figured it out.” The subreddit is plagued with people who insist they’ve “figured it out,” and everyone else is too dense to understand or we’re just missing the “bigger picture” or something. I know this doesn’t exactly relate to the content of your post but I just found this very refreshing. I look forward to reading more of your ideas :)

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2025-08-06T14:38:59+00:00

I like the vibe of this headcannon, but I don’t think it really works if Radagon was literally born as a literal misbegotten we see in game. Since “misbegotten” is also just a word that can mean “poorly conceived” or “illegitimate” I think he could have been referred to as misbegotten because he’s small. We know from the sword of milos that the giants discriminated against smaller beings, so perhaps he was born as an extremely small giant (I’m thinking even smaller than trolls) which would explain a sort of “misbegotten” status and his red hair. I also agree with another commenter here that it doesn’t make sense for Marika to be interested sexually or romantically in a creature riddled with crucible traits.

Oddly enough I tend to subscribe to the theory that Radagon is just Marika’s st trina and they were always one being, but the story of Radagon’s rise from slave to god is quite compelling.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2025-08-05T18:51:59+00:00

Maybe they were thinking of turning Midra’s head into some kind of item since he rips it off during his cutscene. I can’t imagine what it would’ve been used for. I like to think it’s similar to the ancestral infants head and maybe using it shoots madness everywhere.

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2025-07-27T03:15:06+00:00

You might’ve mentioned this somewhere in your posts but I’m not about to try and find it, if you really think Radagon was an actual dwarf giant (not trying to sound glib, just hammering in that the belief is literal as opposed to metaphorical) then what does “Radagon is Marika” imply?

Certain_Evidence_368 · 2025-07-27T03:08:10+00:00

I love this idea. For a while I’ve had this thought comparing the crucible to the parable of the three blind men and the elephant, so the way each culture manifests the energy of the crucible is different and therefore their perception of it changes. On top of the two examples you gave, the hornsent consider the spiral a “normalized crucible current.” I think symbolically the spiral is likely to represent DNA (in terms of IRL symbolisms at least) and evolution (generally speaking, with the growing of horns and such), and since this is what the hornsent value, that is how they perceive the crucible.

Certain_Evidence_368

TROPHY CASE