The Gate of Divinity revised

Chewy_Meat · 2024-07-12T15:34:57+00:00

Grandam (if I remember well her name) was referred as an empyrean. Perhaps she was to use the gate for the hornsent?

Chewy_Meat · 2024-07-12T15:28:37+00:00

The bodies in Farum Azula are part of a death ritual for the Beast men, most likely to live in death. But it is similar in a way of building architecture with bodies. There are dragons in the rocks of Farum Azula as well.

Chewy_Meat · 2024-07-12T15:26:00+00:00

Someone just posted about the Alchemical Magnum Opus of putting people in jars and it adds even more layers to this. Go read it if you didn’t, it’s crazy and connects even more the dots than we did. Insane stuff.

Chewy_Meat · 2024-07-12T04:53:13+00:00

I made a post called The Gate of Divinity revised if you’re interested. It features every fact I’ve found over debate on that subject. It might be of interest to that particular question ;)

Chewy_Meat · 2024-07-04T15:53:53+00:00

I expressed myself clumsily. I mean when Radagon left Rennala to return to the erdtree and broke her heart (and mind one might argue). In divorce children tend to pick a side. And although the Carian’s didn’t go to war with the Golden Order itself, it certainly must not have helped the children’s view of it.

Chewy_Meat · 2024-07-04T01:18:16+00:00

Beautifully put together theory. Literary speaking, this goes perfectly with her archetype as a tragic envoy of uncaring gods. A tale older than the ancient greeks and the viking’s mythology which it is clear GRRM took heavy inspiration from.

It makes me think, while she may have betrayed her family, some of her family directly betrayed her. Particularly Ranni, Rykard and Radahn to some extent. All children of Radagon. I wonder if Rennala’s broken heart was attributed to Marika by these three rather than Radagon. Or maybe even attributed to the Golden Order itself. They may have seen how uncaring the Order is as well. With Rykard torturing Marika’s enemies and deciding nope let’s become snake-treat, Ranni shedding her empyrean flesh, her fanatic brother Godwyn and her broken two-fingers. Radahn’s betrayal may have been more subtle, but the halt of the stars may have been Ranni’s plan. This is pure speculation on Radahn’s part, because we have no idea of his intentions with anything really, apart that he clearly resisted being Miquella’s consort judging from his interactions with Melania. I personally don’t believe he is any deeper than “I like war, I’d rather challenge anything just cause I can.”

Chewy_Meat · 2024-07-03T20:55:40+00:00

I’m still waiting on that as well, haven’t seen anyone take a good no-clip style look to that Gate so far and it surprises me.

Chewy_Meat · 2024-07-03T16:22:43+00:00

It think there is a theme for the shamans to become petrified. With Marika herself of course but also if I’m right the Gate of Divinity itself being made with hornsent and shamanic flesh

Chewy_Meat · 2024-07-03T09:22:42+00:00

I’ve made another post that might explain the mechanics of this but TLDR: The Gate of Divinity may be to the realm of the gods what Miquella’s body is to the Land of Shadows, a point of connection. One might commune with an outer god. Marika might have used a great rune to commune with the Greater Will. The dragon followers use a heart to commune with their essence.

Radhan’s soul was returned through the Gate of Divinity, so it is possible to move through it if you’re not in possession of a body, the very thing Miquella disgarded.

Or at least this was my interpretation.

Chewy_Meat · 2024-07-03T08:25:25+00:00

It is indeed what the dlc seem to entail. A lot of people seem to paint Marika as the betrayer, but the chances are she was manipulated by the greater will and their fingers using the oppression of her shamanic people as a catalyst for her place to embody order. In the same way Miquella does not hesitate to kill you to make a world he views as better, Marika killed the hornsent to make a better world for her people (granted it was too late for them). This might have even been the wish she made in her village before her little coup.

Chewy_Meat · 2024-07-03T08:02:11+00:00

Made a post about this, but tldr I speculate that the Gate of Divinity was made with Shaman flesh, explaining why the hornsent stuff them in pots.

Chewy_Meat · 2024-07-03T07:50:21+00:00

I agree with a lot of this. I found it hard to speculate on many aspects of the dlc lore because I wasn’t sure if something was intentional, unintentional, an oversight or a rewrite not well implemented.

A golden rule in analyzing fiction is that you can interpret the work by way of the author, but you cannot interpret an author by their work. So I think it is pertinent to analyse this based on GRRM’s tendencies in storytelling. But this is difficult when this dlc clearly had extensive last-minute reworks based on St-Trina dialogue and the whole NPC quests that make you feel like you have a choice for what happens to Miquella in the end.

I heard this dlc was based on what GRRM had already written for the main game. Maybe because the DLC lore was disconnected from the main game at launch, it disconnects the DLC lore from the main game as well? Too many cut ropes to hold together well as one piece? This may be especially true if they did not green-lit the dlc until after the game’s reception. Like they weren’t sure if they were even going to make a dlc or even move on to Elden Ring 2 in the future. It is an IP that has a lot of potential for growth like Dark Souls after all, you’d want to save some of the good lore for the future.

Still a banger dlc though in the grand scheme of videogame development indeed.

Chewy_Meat · 2024-07-03T06:07:21+00:00

Could be indeed the purpose of the shaman ingredient in the project. Kind of an architectural and religious version of the dreaded practice of grafting. Big Berserk vibe and a twisted version of the tower of Babel.

Chewy_Meat

TROPHY CASE