#Malekith headers

[asklesbianonceler]

Metyr, The Gloam-Eyed Queen, and The Nox

Lore, item, and speculation analysis. Looking at coincidences and theories a bit closer below the cut.

This is a little more disjointed than my last analysis.

@dykeishheart Replied to your post: I would be curious to know if you think anything in particular about the finger ruins of Rhia and Dheo being shaped just like the godslayer incantation insignia. I haven't seen any people mention it before but I was almost wondering if it's a false thread, like maybe it isn't meant to look like that intentionally bc nothing in Ymir/Metyr quest uses or mentions black flame or the gloam-eyed queen. Unless we interpret Metyr's pink gazing eye as 'gloam' (twilight)

I got this reply and said "yeah, I'll finally get into this!" So thank you!!

I've mentioned vaguely having thoughts on The GEQ/Metyr connections as well as Metyr's connection to the Nox but never got into any of it concretely. I know this specific reply isn't saying Metyr and the GEQ are connected beyond this but I've seen it A LOT and I've wanted to talk about it so it's a good excuse!

You can scroll down to my "Actual Interpretation" header if you want to skip over other's theories and a brief GEQ summary

I want to start by giving an overview on the points I've seen floating around that bring up visual similarities between Metyr and the GEQ so we have a basis for this.

The pattern on Metyr's face, the fingerprint, is similar to both the shape of the godslayer incantations as well as, as user dykeishheart pointed out, the above ground finger ruins

Metyr's tail fingers are in a twist, similar to the helix on the godslayer greatsword.

The godslayer greatsword has a swirling, fingerprint-like pattern on the beginning of the blade before it breaks into a twist

The dominula cape has similar patterns to the incantation as well as the finger sorcery symbols

Jolan and Anna's armor of night, has another similar fingerprint/godslayer-like symbol on the front

My hesitancy with addressing this in detail is that I don't want people to think I'm telling them they're wrong or coming off as argumentative. This is simply my take on the theory. But we're no strangers to characters being associated with the GEQ

So without further adieu, with the points I'll be contesting laid out, here are my thoughts on why Metyr is not connected to the GEQ.

GEQ basics:

We know the GEQ had her own two fingers, was an Empyrean, and was a direct timeline competition to Marika. It seems that, to the Greater Will, they were both potential candidates vying for Elden Lord, each trying to unite the lands between, and possibly the land of shadow, to the GWs plan. It is unclear if at this time the fingers were already unsound and giving baseless messages. I personally do not believe so as these were likely the first sets of two fingers to be bestowed upon Empyreans and still in their early history. It would also make sense that the GW would want false or unfit gods killed off before it's new plan is enacted.

The GEQ controlled destined death, a key aspect of the Elden Ring and one that would be incredibly dangerous for Marika who sought godhood. Thus she and Malekith went to war against her and her Godskins

She raised her godksin from birth, turning the dead flesh of unnamed, and unimportant gods into her children- via the godskin swaddling cloth, also directly connecting her to motherhood.

The meaning of Gloam is roughly synonymous with evening, dusk, twilight, and crepuscule, a time of day characterized by sunset- a blueish to orange/sometimes purple sky. We could also interpret this as "coming to an end" the setting of the sun, the absence of light, or gold. (making her a direct foil to Marika)

Her and her apostles are associated with Black, obsidian, and a deep purple gemstone

My first question about this theory is, what is the theory specifically? That Metyr IS the GEQ or that the GEQ was a follower/champion of Metyr/sanctioned by Metyr?

ON TO

MY ACTUAL INTERPRETATIONS:

My initial thought on the godslayer seal/symbol was always that of inverted fire. A fire devoid of warmth or life, the opposite of those wielded by others in Elden Ring. This is still my interpretation. The Stone set in the middle of the seal, to me, also do not seem intentional enough for me to connect it to Metyr. Had it been anything but black I would be more inclined to give this more weight. Metyr's eye is red/orangeish, bearing an odd crossed separation down its iris. I believe there are too many similar swirling, round patterns in other incantations for this to seem concretely intentional. The Frenzy Flame, Dragon communion, and others all have a swirling in the center. The other thing setting this symbol apart from a fingerprint is the symbols between each ring.

As far as the finger ruins shape, to me they almost feel like sites of large meteor crashes, further suggested by the falling star beast. And Metyr herself is a falling star. Their shape to me feels like a trail of something hitting the ground and settling. I believe it says the lampreys aren't from the land of shadow as well but I could be wrong. They feel very alien and touched by outer presence. I think their fingerprint line shape also feels like the ripples of something crashing there.

Metyr is also a shockingly developed god in comparison to the Elden Beast, so much so that I cannot see her being or sanctioning The GEQ. As I got into in my Ymir Analysis post, Metyr is given strong characterization and emotion. She is loyal and subservient to the GW to the end. Even when she is abandoned she remains true to the purpose it gave her, grieving her corrupt children, waiting, alone, and growing resentful- but only to the point of physical violence via her thrashing and wielding of her head as a weapon. Her built up anger, as her remembrance weapon states, manifests in crushing blows of her head as a weapon. Her utmost rage is literally her beating her head against the ground in frustration, to the detriment of those around her and likely herself. She is described as a kowtower to the GW and seemingly deals with far too much of her own grief, self doubt, and obligation to come up with her own agenda or enact another agenda herself/take any matters into her own hands to the extent of the GEQ. We have also seen the result of her direct connection with others via Ymir and seeing as this is the first/only time we see finger sorcery learned from her it's unlikely anyone else ever made contact to this extent. Her connection to the GEQ is that she birthed the fingers that told the GEQ what to do.

Perhaps, as many others, the GEQ was enamored by the teachings of her two fingers and took inspiration from its form. This wouldn't be uncommon. We see fingerprints in Frenzy flame items, Nox items, and the fingerprint shield- which is an item I would like to get into a lot more in a moment. But to connect her that closely to Metyr feels incredibly out of character for Metyr. Metyr is also largely connected to int builds and sorcery. Never Faith. Even the High Priest Hat boosts both Int and Arcane, not touching upon Faith. I also believe the lack of godskins in the land of shadow is incredibly telling. If the GEQ had connections to Metyr there would surely be something mentioning her blackflame or godskins in the DLC

Both are also associated with motherhood, but to the point that i think it's the opposite of something that connects them narratively. The GEQ has such a specific and unique way of creating her children/warriors, far too different from Metyr's

As far as the connection to her tail fingers goes, there are also countless other connections to helixes being associated with the divine, a main one being the hornsent. Her sword also doesn't have the classic spinal look down the center of the blade that both the Sacred relic sword and fingerslayer blade do.

In terms of connecting dominula to the godskin, that is entirely possible, but this just comes back to my feelings on the godslayer symbol. Connecting anything at all to the finger sorcery symbol would be baseless. This design takes far too much inspiration from the Carian and Raya Lucarian sigils to not be something Ymir created for his own sorceries, thus unique to the land of shadow and his studying of Metyr.

Metyr also seems far too connected to the stars for me to associate her with someone who's name means dusk- a time of day characterized by sunlight still being in the sky albeit fading. You really can't see stars during this time and certainly not enough for them to seem bright. She is far more associated with pure night than evening. Great segway.

The Nox and the Fingerprints and a Slayed God

Like I wanted GEQ lore in the dlc. I wanted to know more about her. But I truly think she's dead :(

I think sometimes we're just looking for GEQs so much that maybe we're overlooking some smaller revelations from the Metyr quest.

Specifically in regards to the Nox's reason for banishment and the fingerslayer blade.

Jolan and Anna are nox swordhands of Night. Their armor describes the swordhands as being born deep underground and their armor bears the fingerprint marking- actually described as a fingerprint in the description this time. But they don't wear this armor because they are in Metyr/Ymir's service. They arrived at the land of shadow wearing this armor that is designed to keep them in the dark and there were more than just two of them. We find the armor on a corpse in a body bag in bonny gaol, next to multiple other bodybags. But we can say for sure there were at least three swordhands here. And they must have had a purpose here for them to be the only Nox in the lands of shadow.

And this got me thinking. What other items specifically reference fingerprints and at first it just seems like frenzy items which seemed like a dead end. But there's one specific item that although related to frenzy, references a time before that- The fingerprint stone shield which is "part of the tomb of an ancient god---- the very seeds from which frenzy first started" So similar to Godwyn's death, a death created an unforeseen consequence, but who was this god? Who killed him? Well, aside from the GEQ, there is one other group of people known for knowing how to kill gods. The Nox. And they had a reason to do so. The Fingerslayer blade is born of a corpse and bears a similar helix and spinal design to the sacred relic sword, implying it is from the body of a god. The sword of a vassal/god that is capable of killing another. Perhaps this was the god the Nox killed in order to create the blade. Perhaps they did not kill this god themselves and merely robbed it's grave and defiled the body by rending the fingerslayer blade from it. The recurring fingerprint motif on the armor of the swordhands and on the tomb is an interesting connection. Regardless, the Nox did not want to be governed by the GW's influence, instead they followed the stars. They were the original GW haters and they wanted to kill one of its vassals and harm the GW. Which vassal did they intend to kill? Ranni uses it on her two fingers but perhaps it was made for Metyr, the source of the GW's messages that they hated so much. They were never able to use it. It's creation led them to be banished and stripped of the stars at the hands of the GW. Swordstress armor states, " Now they live under a false night sky, in eternal anticipation of their liege. Of the coming age of the stars. And their lord of night"

This would make sense as to why the swordhands are in the land of shadow. They were looking for Metyr. And it would also give us some food for thought on Jolan and Anna, Anna perhaps being the one who still believed in their original purpose and Jolan, having disagreed with her. Jolan instead believing she has found what the Nox were awaiting, the return of their stars and their lord of night. Her infatuation with stars, saying Ymir is her shining star, and doing as he asks without question, knowing he sees fate in the stars, heavily implies this is what she believes. Perhaps she too seeks redemption for what she's done as a swordhands, her weak heart leading her to forsake her original goal and seeking her fate in Ymir's stars.

Time to yap, because I understand I'm probably wrong about the ancient god connection bit:

Yapping: This ancient god to Nox connection is just theorizing. We could even theorize that the ancient god mentioned in the fingerprint shield is the GEQs grave and that maybe the Nox didn't kill this god and merely looted the grave, but the timeline on that might be odd. I can't say for sure. Further we can ask who's fingers were the three fingers, this ancient god's? GEQs? Or are they even fingers? Are they merely an apparition of something we will accept messages from? If Marika put the nomadic merchants in that hole in the ground it would also imply she put the tomb down there that held a dead god. A god she killed maybe? Really seems like that's where she puts shit she wants to forget about... The shunning grounds and all that.

Misc images that may be relevant!

[packerlands]

Thor : The Dark World headers

© to @bieberdwards​  > (credit tweet) - like/reblog if you save

Click on the header, then save it to keep the right size

[bedlamsbard]

you know something’s about to go DOWN in this timeline when the flashback header looks like this

Then T minus [unknown] to nexus event

Significant variance energy detected Multiple potential variants identified: O9780 (Borson, Odin), L1291 (Laufeyson, Loki), T1216 (Odinson, Thor), M663 (Malekith), [continued]

…calculating…

…calculating…

yeah Odin’s timeline was on the verge of going nuclear when he got nabbed

[jane-fosterarchive]

malekith icons: from: mighty thor (2015) #700 like or rb if using! more icons / request icons

headers:

[empress-of-snark]

(this header by @caseyblu is cooler than the actual movie)

THOR: THE DARK WORLD (2013)

AKA: All roads lead to Svartalfheim.

(Alternately, “Make the universe dark again!”)

(Spoilers for both Thor 2 and a tiny bit of Thor 3.)

Much as I wanted to enjoy this movie, it’s just… so forgettable. The villain is boring as hell, Jane is just kind of there, and they’re trying to make her important but it’s not working, and knowing that Loki is really alive takes all the emotion out of his ‘death’ scene (especially after that part in Ragnorak, you know, where Matt Damon plays Loki, lmao).

First of all, it starts off almost exactly like the first Thor movie. “Long ago, we Asgardians were at war with this other race, and we fought a lot, and we won, but at what cost?” Been there, done that with the Jotunheims, Odin. It was also very reminiscent of the prologue to Fellowship of the Ring. Maybe it was just the color scheme.

We were watching a possibly illegal version online which, for whatever reason, didn’t have subtitles for the Dark Elves, so we had no idea what Malekith was saying, ever. Here’s the thing though: it didn’t matter at all. Other than like, making it clear that he’s out there planning stuff, pretty much all of Malekith’s scenes are nearly arbitrary. I looked up some of the lines online and it’s all just stuff like “Asgardians are weak and the dark days are coming soon, blah blah blah.” If that’s all your villain says for the whole movie, get a new villain. I can’t believe they wasted Christopher Eccleston’s talent on this two-dimensional cardboard cutout of an antagonist.

Thor already went through all his character development in the first movie, so he’s really got nowhere to go here. He’s pretty boring. Like, honestly, he’s one of the most boring characters in the movie, and it’s his movie.

But Jane is perfect for him, because she’s also boring in this one. She’s a vessel for the aether, and nothing more. Oh, and she’s kind of rude to her perfectly nice date, Richard.

Sorry if we’re being really harsh here, by the way. I feel like this is harsh, but it also needs to be said.

As always, I have no idea exactly how immortal Asgardians are. Frigga takes a knife to the gut and she dies immediately, yet Loki gets impaled with a sword and somehow survives? Also, if Frigga is capable of the same magic that Loki is, I feel like there was something more she could’ve done to get out of that situation. But no, kill the woman to propel the men’s stories forward.

There were a few good points in this movie! I need to say something positive, this is ridiculous. For one thing, I completely forgot about Captain America’s cameo and it was great. Now I need to find that behind-the-scenes clip of Tom in the Cap suit, pretending to be Loki impersonating Cap.

Zachary Levi is a delight as Fandral/Robin Hood. No idea why he had to be recast, but honestly, I don’t really care. He got a glo-up, just like Bruce Banner.

Darcy steals nearly every scene she’s in and again I am very sad that this is her last MCU movie (As far as we know…). This is weird, but I’m also sad that she never got to meet Loki. I just feel like that would’ve been a really interesting combination and possibly hysterical.

One more good point is that Thor and Loki’s sibling interactions are so accurate. One of the best scenes was Loki’s irritating backseat driving while Thor was desperately trying to figure out how to drive the Elf ship, shouting at Loki to shut up.

This movie isn’t a complete waste of time and it’s worth a rewatch, but it’s definitely not one of Marvel’s better installments. At the most, it helps set up Infinity War by introducing the Reality Stone.

RANKINGS:      Hero: 6 Myeh-myeh’s out of 10. The most that can be said for Thor in this movie is that losing his mother and (apparently) his brother makes him realize that he needs to spend more time with the ones he loves, i.e. Jane. But this is pretty understated, and the fact remains that he’s still pretty boring for most of the movie.

     Villain: 2 wasted Doctors out of 10. Malekith is just… the most boring villain. Explaining this ranking implies that there’s anything more to be said about him. There’s not.

     Supporting characters: 6 interns out of 10. Basically anyone who’s not Thor and Malekith. Honestly, the supporting characters are the only thing that make this movie even a little bit interesting. My brother says that the most telling thing about this movie is that he was almost more interested in Darcy and Ian than Thor and Jane.           Female characters: 5.5 Bechdels out of 10. Again, this one passes the test because of Jane and Darcy, and it still has all four of its women from the first one. However, Frigga is killed at the halfway mark, and Sif and Jane are pitted against each other in a love triangle that goes nowhere and adds less than nothing to the plot.

     Action scenes: 6 punches out of 10. There’s one major fight scene at the end, and about three little ones before, but none of them are terribly memorable, aside from the deaths. The coolest part is when Jane and Selvig manage to teleport little groups of Dark Elves all over the city.

     Stan Lee: 3 cameos out of 5. Not a very impressionable cameo, but it gets a good laugh.

     Charisma: 4 points out of 10. At the very least, it was devoted to its aesthetic. But this movie just feels lacking overall. The themes aren’t really played out as much as they could’ve been and it definitely leaves you unsatisfied.

In total: 32.5 out of 65--50% exactly. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 66%.

Next is Captain America: The Winter Soldier!