#Godwyn = natural electricity generation harvested from the dragons (a.k.a. incantations to call upon the sky gods)

[miirshroom]

So Ranni's Dark Moon is a cold sorcery. Ranni appears inhabiting the form of an artificial doll. And as far as I'm concerned that goes a long way towards confirming that her ending is the true end of Elden Ring. Because it is the only available option that launches FromSoftware out of the Victorian Era that is portrayed in Bloodborne: the production of artificial cold.

The modern world would not exist without the advances in artificial cold storage that were made through the 1860's to 1910's. And at the same time significant discoveries about electricity were being made through the 1800's - altogether leading to the first commercial refrigerator for home use in 1913. Air conditioning is now ubiquitous in North America (much more than in Europe for example, which struggles with climate change driven heat waves that exceed the capacity of houses traditionally designed to promote air flow for cooling). Superconductors! Discovered in 1911 thanks to the development of refrigerants. Powerful electromagnets used in MRI/NMR machines, mass spectrometers, and particle accelerators.

The point being: the ability of humans to produce electricity and cold on demand revolutionized technology and population distributions. There is significant potential to explore these in the fantastical framework that FromSoftware has been using in previous games - similar to the medical metaphor of Bloodborne.

On the other hand, I believe that there is not a single ending to Elden Ring capable of resolving the looming threat of the Frenzy Flame - and this is intentional. We haven't figured that one out in real life either. There is no magic fix for summers so hot and dry that vast stretches of forest burn in fires on the west coast of America every year, or for oceans heated to the point that coral reefs experience catastrophic bleaching. Refrigerators do not create cold, but instead have a process for removing heat from a confined space. Many methods of electricity generation (including nuclear) are actually accomplished using steam and thus have a byproduct of heated water. It is a reality that creating artificial cold contributes to the net increase in planetary heating. It is also a catastrophic problem whenever a location reliant on electricity and cooling is suddenly cut off - such as in the case of natural disasters. These are warnings that not even the most technologically advanced places in the world are resilient enough to the increased severity of natural disasters that go along with climate change.

Overall, viewing the creation of cold as an incomprehensible source of horror in the style of H.P. Lovecraft's "Cold Air" will not help. Taking cold for granted and assuming that someone else will solve the complex problem of sustainability and regulating global thermodynamics also will not help. We could sit around and hope that some volcano erupts and fills the sky with ash worldwide to cause a period of global cooling - which would likely have only a temporary effect and also cause its own problems. As much as we can explore different methods of producing electricity, we can't ignore that a large portion of that electricity is and will continue to be allocated to refrigeration.

"As it is now, life, and souls, and order are bound tightly together, I would have them at great remove. And have the certainties of sight, emotion, faith, and touch... All become impossibilities." - Ranni

And with the real world context that the 84 of the 118 known chemical elements were discovered after the year 1800 it can be pieced together what Ranni is likely talking about in her speech. The Age of Stars is the Atomic Age - or at least the years leading up to the 1940's. You can't see or feel atoms but they exist and can be empirically quantified whether or not a person believes in them.

(And on the other hand the heyday of the movie star is positioned right in this timeframe from the 1920's to 1960's. Age of Stars - but not in the way that you might think. The stars are other people).