#Shabiri

[mzuark]

Madness > Miquella

Yesterday I finally completed the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. It was a hard as fuck, but we're not going to talk about that. Another thing I did yesterday was discover the Abyssal Woods area, this is a part of the Shadow Lands that have been touched by Frenzied Flame. Meaning it's home to all kinds of Madness infected wildlife and abominations that have been heavily mutated by it.

I'm prepared to say this is my favorite area in the whole DLC because the atmosphere is pure horror and it's so effective. After you navigate the woods, you end up in Midra's Mansa Musa where you fight a guy whose apparently become the Lord of Frenzied Flame. How did he get this way? What happened to his home and his subjects? My personal theory is that the woman he calls Nanaya is actually Shabiri in a human woman's body like Hyetta and it was convincing him to go down the rabbithole.

After I finished this area, I realized that I would've much preferred a whole expansion focused on this. On Madness, on Frenzied Flame, on Shabiri. Maybe even work Melina in there since her coming after a Lord of FF is a kind of sequel hook. This is far and away the best lore in the world of ER and I think my fellow Chaos Heads reading this would agree. It's not that I dislike Miquella but one single area got me more invested than the whole map dedicated to figuring out where the little boy ran off too.

Also, we need more Madness weapons.

[nina245]

🔥MAY CHAOS TAKE THE WORLD 🔥

Tried Elden Ring for the first time this summer and all the edits of this part are so good, that I needed to draw it

[headcanontheshitoutofsoulsborne]

After Shabiri's original body died, it went on to become an Aging Untouchable.

[minespatchart]

Another random request I was given. This time jump scare Torrent. I chose the carian knight set for the random tarnished since I've seen a ton of players use it if not the Raging Wolf set.

[minespatch1]

[cassie-is-trans]

Leather and lace 😈

[wedding-shemp]

trying n failing to make Joe Friday in elden ring

[asexuallucanisdellamorte]

i shouldn't have stayed up until 3am watching elden ring lore videos so now I'm like can we talk about shabiri? can we talk about the merchants? can we talk about miquella and malenia? can we talk about marika's less than stellar parenting skills?

[unrelenting-usurper]

Going through NG+2 Elden Ring Frenzied Flame route and just giving up on being "skilled" or "good" at the game near the end so I walk into Godfrey's arena with a possessed weeaboo with a funny hat, Godfrey's literal daughter and rightful heir to the throne, and my literal fucking clone and proceed to beat that old man with sticks

[thefleetingflashofa-sword623]

shabiri grape cursing me with eternal eyeball mouthfeel Sometthing must be done about this

[sausage-rolll]

Oh boy here comes a long one.

My least favourite part about the elden ring fandom is probably how readily everyone blamed Ranni for everything horrible that happens in the game, completely stripping away any agency Marika or anyone else had in the whole ordeal. 

Through a grief stricken rage over Godwyns death or not it was Marika’s decision to shatter the elden ring, bringing her age to a bloody end. It was her choice to put all the Demigods against each other in a big bloodbath of a war and it was Radagons decision to seal the erdtree so nobody could enter and fix the whole mess, condemning the world to stagnation. And on top of all of this it was the Demigod’s themselves who followed through with Marika’s wishes tenfold and tore the lands between to shreds in their war path.

-

This isn’t even going into the fact that overtime, more and more evidence has cropped up that Marika was planning to revolt against the greater will for a long while before Godwyns death, so the shattering might have not even been caused by it in the first place. There’s breadcrumbs of this secret plot leading all the way back to the end of her first marriage with Godfrey, where she banished him and his tarnished warriors specifically to wage war in distant lands and grow stronger in death, to eventually be called back when she deems it time (which just so happened to be through the shattering itself).

If any one soul person is to be responsible for the shattering (which I don’t believe to be the case) and all the lives it ruined, it would be Marika. Ranni might have been the person to light the spark, but it was Marika who decided to throw that spark into the forest, and tell everyone else to follow suit until it was nothing but a blazing, chaotic mess.

-

Don’t get me wrong. Ranni isn’t an innocent little snowflake in this whole ordeal either. She did still plot the assassination of Godwyn, armed and set loose the black knives upon the world (who seemingly went rouge at some point considering they’re leader’s trapped on the moonlight alter and they went after Ranni’s lot after she attacked her fingers), royally pissed off Maliketh by stealing from him and inadvertently spread the second most annoying, deadly plant across the lands between. She’s not innocent by any means, but she’s also not more guilty than any other character in the game.

Like, you really gonna look at the shit characters like Rykard, Shabiri and Mohg pulled and still tell me that Ranni is the most evil, selfish, heartless character in the game?

[driften-sea-snake]

Elden Ring and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known

“All that there is came from the One Great. Then came fractures, and births, and souls...Melt it all away, with the yellow chaos flame. Until all is One again....Take their torment, despair. Their affliction. Every sin, every curse. And melt it all away...No more fractures...no more birth...” -Hyetta’s last dialogue

“Burn the Erdtree to the ground, and incinerate all that divides and distinguishes.” -Shabriri

"an aspect of the primordial crucible, where all life was once blended together.” - Aspects of the Crucible: Tail description

“Regression is the pull of meaning; that all things yearn eternally to converge.” - Law of Regression description

“To gaze into one another's eyes is truly the most intimate form of human contact.” -Inescapable Frenzy description

“Causes the yellow flame of frenzy to violently burst forth from the caster's eyes...It is the maddening pain and unstoppable tears of those afflicted with the flame of frenzy brought into being.” - Unendurable Frenzy description

“I wonder, what are Shabiri Grapes? Delectably tender and sweet, yet searing...What sight they must behold. " -Hyetta

“why it was eyes I had to eat. The distant light is far and frail. So faint it can't be seen by the naked eye. But with everyone's eyes together, it appears. Finally, it all makes sense.” -Hyetta

[minespatchart]

Finally tackled the Elden Ring platinum comic. Might've been better if I did Ranni's ending but I really wanted to see the Moon ruins. Like Panel 2 mentions, I'll hold back from Fia and Goldmask for the dlc. I would've done them if their endings weren't "Sitting on throne with different color pallet", Somehow dungeater felt different enough that it was worth checking it out before Shabiri's ending. Mimic is there cause he's worked with me from the very end. Though also the Shabiri eyes made him look terrified.

[pessimisticshapewithablog]

On Madness and the Frenzied Flame.

What does it mean within the world of Elden Ring? What was Fromsoft's intent behind it's implementation?

To preface, I don't exactly like the direction the writers from Fromsoft went when implementing the concept of madness in Elden Ring. Not from lack of trying but because of the mixed messaging we are given within the game.

I think I understand the unreliable narrator's understanding of the Frenzied Flame, but it's hard to refute it as unreliable when the writing corroborates that version over any other interpretation.

Let me explain...

Spoilers for Shadow of the Erdtree below.

MIDRA'S FLAME OF FRENZY

The Lord of Frenzied Flame shall take their torment, despair. Their affliction. Every sin, every curse. All melted away.

Yet Midra, like others before him, was too weak to become a Lord.

Within the story of Elden Ring, Frenzy is treated like some contagious madness that can be 'caught' and transferred by sight or touch. The two dominant cultures at the time, the Hornsent and the Golden Order, were so terrified of it that they killed and imprisoned anyone who they thought was affiliated with it. Understandable, but that isn't actually how the frenzy flame is created/spreads.

Remembrance of Midra, Lord of Frenzied

As the golden barbs inflicted eternal agony upon him, Midra held fast to Nanaya's entreaty: "Endure." The word was a curse...

It's suffering. Mind numbing, unmitigated suffering.

We first see it with the merchants. Their people were accused, by him no less, of being touched by the Frenzied Flame. As a result they were rounded up and imprisoned in the shunning ground. Without evidence or probable cause, only hearsay and malicious intent. The Golden Order doesn't even try to free the Merchants once the truth of their innocences is known.

The public acknowledgement of such a grievous misstep would likely tarnish the Order's reputation, something Marika cared about more than anything. So they killed Shabiri out of spite or to get rid of anyone else who knew and simply left the merchants to rot. The merchants pain and torment, starving and abandoned in the shunning ground, is what summoned the three fingers.

Not Shabiri directly, kinda, but because of the Golden Order's wanton cruelty and disregard for the lives of people outside their order.

UNENDURABLE FRENZY

It is the maddening pain and unstoppable tears of those afflicted with the flame of frenzy brought into being.

The second time the Frenzied Flame makes an appearance is in the DLC in Midra's Manse, which, retroactively, predates the main game's reveal of it's existence.

We aren't told the reason of Midra and his servants massacred but it can be assumed that the Hornsent believed Midra was associating with the Frenzied Flame and took action against him. The thing is, we don't know if Midra was actually guilty of actually doing that. His follower's were just as confused by the Hornsent attack as he was.

Given how the Frenzied Flame came to exist in the main game, it likely none of them were touched by the Frenzied Flame and that someone accused Midra and his Manse of being so. Or it was a misunderstanding caused by fear and ignorance. The Hornsent heard "Frenzied Flame" and just killed everyone.

Either way the result was the same as before, the act of unwarranted cruelty is what nestled the Flame of Frenzy within Midra which I think Nanaya wanted him to resist.

I say this because when he finally decides to unleash it, Midra apologizes to her. There's a theory floating that Nanaya was a three-finger maiden cultivating the Flame within Midra, but if that was the case, them she wouldn't have told Midra to resist it. Hyetta sure as hell didn't tell us to. Unless suppressing makes it stronger, but then why were we able to embody the Frenzy Flame so easily.

What is Frenzy?

The IRL definition of Frenzy is:

"a state or period of uncontrolled excitement or wild behavior."

It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's almost always used negatively. And in Elden Ring, it is. When exposed to the Flame, our tarnished becomes afflicted with "madness".

"the state of having a serious mental illness."

Now, dear reader, think about what the Frenzied Flame ending would/ could be interpreted:

• With the power of ☆mental illness☆ we can destroy the world..?

• Mental illness is how we can do away with suffering..?

• Mental illness is an incredibly destructive force..?

The list goes on lmao.

Granted, I think, think, Fromsoft was trying to say how the mistreatment of people can create self-destructive nihilists who want to destroy everything for an ounce of reprieve from their suffering out of a warped sense good. But holy shit do they fuck that up. Badly.

SHABRIRI'S WOE

It is said that the man, named Shabriri, had his eyes gouged out as punishment for the crime of slander, and, with time, the blight of the flame of frenzy came to dwell in the empty sockets.

Shabiri. Fucking Shabiri??? Fromsoft made the poster child for the Frenzied Flame ending and the embodiment of human suffering an unrepentant, "evil for the lols" jackass, who we learn caused the death of thousands of innocent people for shits and giggles. We don't even learn why Shabiri wants the world wiped clean he just does. Whatever Fromsoft could drum up would probably feel disingenuous because of his established character.

HOWL OF SHABRIRI

It is said that the sickness of the flame of frenzy began with Shabriri, the most reviled man in all history.

It would have been better if he didn't exist at all and they let the spread the Frenzied Flame be solely on the shoulders of the people who caused it. It's existence become cause and effect not, "oh, ignore everything we showed you there's actually some evil dude who's truly responsible, not the hegemony who uses violence as a means of control".

Of course, the Golden Order and Hornsent are in the wrong, but their role in the Frenzied Flames existence isn't derided, at all. Yeah, they tortured people in the most sadistic ways they could, but no, it's the victims who are worse because Shabiri turned them into nihilists?

And don't even get me started on Hyetta's nothing-ass quest line. Who even is she? We meet her character once before she's body-snatched by something(???) and starts eating eyeballs. Fucking pardon Fromsoft?

We, as the players, are shown how the Flame comes into existence, but it feels like the writers at Fromsoft didn't know how to handle such a heavy topic. Or they did before budget cuts.

Kalé's cut quest...

https://youtu.be/0Cljs4UTdT8?si=4tR05bRLqhg6Qf1X

There is a cut quest that would have had us assist Kalé in finding what happened to his people. Rather than being impartial observers in the suffering caused by the Golden Order, we get to witness firsthand how that affects people.

Kalé is likely the first genuinely friendly face we meet. He is kindly and open, offering us advice and resources to help us survive. He even compares his own people's plight to the Tarnisheds'. People abandoned by the grace of gold, trying to survive in whatever way they can. In that brief moment, Kalé's establishes a connection with us/out tarnished that his based on shared pain. He doesn't wallow but simply acknowledges it and seeks kinship in it.

In the cut quest, this kinship leads Kalé' to ask our assistance in helping find the locations of his lost people, something of a life's mission for him. The dialog is delivered in such a way that makes it clear that this means a lot to Kalé and when we do assist, him, Kalé is deeply thankful. Each time we help Kalé he seems more and more hopeful of reuniting with his people and traveling together with them in the Great Caravan.

So when we learn the truth of what happens to the other merchants, the revelation of the Golden Order's transgressions is all the more gut-wrenching. Not only is Kalé's hopes of meeting his kin dashed, but he learns his people and culture has been effectively wiped out.

We see (well, hear) just how deeply this affects Kalé. He is heartbroken. His anger is visceral. He lashes out at us, completely forgetting how the tarnished too had suffered at the hands of the Golden Order. In the end, he pushes us aware, severing the connection he made with our Tarnished. Kalé's hopeless despair pushes him to seek out the three-fingers. He is rejected as a host and possibly dies, begging us to take up the mantle of the Lord of Frenzy flame to burn away the world's suffering.

Narrative Dissonance

To me, this was a very poignant and well written way to show just what the Frenzy Flame and Madness meant to the people afflicted by it. It wasn't just chaos and nihilism made manifest. It was a way people in pain sought to end their and everyone's pain. It was their way of taking control of their suffering and turning it into a weapon against those who wronged them. That is NOT how Elden Ring portrays it, though.

On Elden Ring Frenzy is treated 1) as just a status effect that only effects tarnished, which we are obviously shown isn't exclusive to them. We fight many enemies on Mt. Gelmir afflicted by it due to the horrors of war. Yet somehow effects animals but doesn't affect their behavior besides giving their attacks madness buildup. See the sheep in the Abyssal woods. I get that being an animal is hard, but what suffering has been wrought on a sheep frolicking in the woods?

And 2) as some simplistic goal to bring "chaos," whatever the hell that means within the context of Elden Rings plot, to the world and destroy all the good things in existence. That is Shabiri's goal, but the reason why the Frenzied Flame exists at all is completely ignored and dowplayed. Because Fromsoft dropped the ball on helping us understand what the Frenzy Flame Ending means and failed to 'humanize' it.

With Kalé's quest, we see that it is giving into hopelessness in the face of adversity that causes it to take root and dehumanizing cruely that allows it to spread. It's aimless anger, pointless loss and grief that pushes people over the edge. Not 'evil for the lols'. Of course the dominant hegemony thinks it's a disease. It likely is the cause of it. Suffering and pain exists inherently but the misdeeds of those with power exacerbate it. See the Golden Order's treatment of the Merchants and the Hornsent inquisition of Midra's Manse.

Conclusion

The Frenzied Flame and Lord of the Flame of Frenzy was meant to be a messianic figure who embodied people's suffering and used it to burn away the world to make way for a better one. Possibly. Melina makes it seem like the destruction is permanent, but we can't be sure it would be (because Fromsoft decided not to tell us😒). But the way From wrote it basically invalidated their own narrative.

The concept of using fire to burn away the world and the rot growing within, was a major plot point of one of From's previous DLC's Ashes of Ariandel. And they didn't hesitate with the message they were trying to send:

As much as we want to preserve something for the sake of it, sometimes the best thing we can do is let it go. Wipe the slate clean so that, maybe, something better can be built from it.

Hell, even in Elden Ring we see the same issues popping up in the Lands Between, but instead of being encouraged to break the cycle, we are instead lead to believe it us the bad thing to do. The message has become,

Uphold the status quo at all costs, regardless of how many people are suffering because of it. As well as that suffering is dangerous and everyone who displays it should be 'quarantined'(killed).

Granted, maybe From was trying to show that both extremes were bad, but they didn't. They wrote it in a way that legitimized the suffering of those inflicted by the Flame of Frenzy. That their perspective shouldn't be considered because of what they have indured because it's "spooky scary".

Like, what was thinking Fromsoft?

[katyspersonal]

How did you let Shabiri gaslight you?

Oh, to be honest, gaslight is not a right term here! It specifically means manipulation that makes another doubt their own memories and perception, but I have a bad habit of also using it when the person got a (generally) right idea about something and someone makes them doubt this idea in favor of a way more detrimental one. The idea, not one's own ability to analyze and perceive! With that being said, what I mean is that Shabriri pushed me more to the 'bad' side of permanent existential dilemma. His words, and "philosophy" of Frenzied Flame in general, appeals both to the brand of despair contained within Soulsborne games and to my own despair.

We spend a lot of Elden Ring seeing suffering and oppression, consequences of "all that divides and distinguishes". The world is broken fundamentally. Greater Will doesn't know what it wants to do, but sought mortal plane to allow them to give it purpose and order. But no matter who takes up so much power, it will all just eventually lead to more misery and need to be destroyed and replaced with the new thing.. and that thing will also eventually collapse. And so on, and so on.

Yeah, Shabriri is the bad guy, sure. It is said that the FF sickness started with him, and now the world is cursed with the condition where if you get reasonably depressed you get linked with the mindless power that wants to undo the existence itself. But why Shabriri had the power to slander the Nomads to begin with? Who set the oppressive system that punished the "heretics" with being buried alive in motion? Certainly not Shabriri. His crime is a symptom of "all that divides and distinguishes", not the cause of it. And the world would've still be broken even if FF was never unleashed. Other endings are still questionable. Age of Fracture is just keeping the world broken as it is. Age of Duskborn and Age of Despair are effectively "swinging the pendulum the other side" and we all know it is pretty bad resolution, no matter how justified or expected. Age of Stars and Age of Perfecf Order remove the 'authority' over cosmic horrors that took the form of gold-colored magic in this world: Ranni removes it from anyone's reach and Goldmask makes it accessible to everyone equally. The problem is-

Yes, exactly lol Thank you, Brador! Who is to tell that now in this sort of anarchy, people won't again battle each other until new leader, new oppressive system arises and new kind of suffering and injustice is created? In the end, it didn't solve anything. People suffer under a leader, people suffer without a leader.

As for my personal experience? I am just thinking about this stuff a lot. ALL the time. As a neurodivergent person I've been experiencing the sense of any society I enter trying to remove me like a tumor on an otherwise healthy body early. Children and teens are naturally cruel to the 'odd ones', that's true, but did things really improve in adulthood, or just became more elusive, buried under layers of pretenses and lies? However, is not it reasonable?

Are social animals, ALL of them and not just humans, at fault for trying to preserve definition and customs of their community by excluding those that don't fit in it? We often claim that animals are innocent, but social ones do the same thing: they are not kind to those who are weaker, "useless" or just break the "rules". Nature itself is very ruthless: you are born with something off or lose it for reasons you could not control and you will not survive. Humans developed the ways to help disabled to adapt and survive, but somehow trapped themselves in the system where helping everyone is "not efficient". The opposite way to build the society, on the other hand, leads to stagnation and a different sort of oppression. Both capitalism and communism are built to get rid of those that don't fit into it, just different criteria of not fitting, and yet you can't trust humanity with anarchy.

But are those born different at fault for being this way? But hey, why do we live in the world where if someone could choose what way to be born as, they'd be inclined to fit the norm just to avoid more misery? But how community is preserved if there is no bar for who can belong in it? No matter how you are born - different or normal - both options are bad because you either suffer or cause suffering with your very existence. But don't normies also suffer when we "ruin" their experiences, systems and traditions by existing, but don't we cause suffering with our own existence? Trying to accommodate to everyone leaves world in stagnation and suffering and eventually some people get fed up and off to declare and exterminate the "enemy", NOT trying to do that causes misery, loneliness and deaths. Again, with people trying to overthrow it but all it does is makes pendulum swing. Happiness can only exist atop of neglecting and oppressing others, and if you ARE oppressed, your own way to happiness only lays through committing atrocities and learning TO oppress so is it worth it?

The problem is in how mind and feelings of everyone that lives work. There is some fundamental error in them, because they seek to harm each other and self, because freedom is dangerous but all control becomes too rotten and brings too many victims in the end. No matter who you are, being born into this world is on itself a curse. You'd think that civilisation and education would improve things, but have they? So far most of what I've seen humans do with knowledge about justice, decency, 'red flags' and abuse, bigotry and morality is to distort and misuse it to no end. They just invent new enemies and eat their own, there is never enough victims. Bigotry and evil is not rooted in ignorance, but in nature of life. Idiots do not become smarter when given knowledge, they just become dangerous idiots. So, is not evolving and not seeking knowledge and meaning better? But we already figured that animalistic drives are pretty evil and brutal too.

I respect Soulsborne for having all this, and much more, seen. I don't feel satisfied with the answers to this problem I tend to get from people, and I definitely don't believe that God who cursed humans for slipping under 100% control and threatens people with even more pain if they don't offer him their love is anything good to fall back on. But hey, the guy who rebelled against him doesn't have humanity's best interests in mind either! He is just waiting to pry on us, and humanity got no one. Being oppressed with fear or being a food for demons or wandering aimlessly without purpose? Choose your poison, there is no mercy except for death, and death is the one and only thing that makes everyone equal! Neither side cares for us, and not even we ourselves care for us. I am talking about both the games and real thing here, because Soulsborne is basically a big real world reference x)

I can only laugh it all off as "edgy teenager angst" for so long, but I am thinking about things like this every day. This post is just a tip of the iceberg because I can't spill my whole heart even if I want to, there is just.. too much stuff. More than all words in all languages could encapsulate. "Destroy all that divides and distinguishes, may Chaos take the world" however, is a good way to express the sentiment. It feels cathartic to say. Why not just end it all, if it's fundamentally broken? If the world is just a farm of suffering but deceptive with many beautiful things to hide its true ugly meaning? Although there were other characters delivering meaning of FF, Shabriri felt like the real manifestation of it, and fed that despair I already struggled it into winning.

Like I said, the whole 'picking FF ending to save Melina xD' flew completely over my head. For me it was about being convinced that just returning everything into primordial state of Chaos and singularity was better. And, again, conversation with Melina was so meaningful for this reason. Because there are enough of people that still agree to live in this world, even if wretched, and experience whatever they can. I'd argue that maybe wish to live itself is just something programmed in us to not let us avoid our given purpose to suffer and struggle, or cause suffering and struggle.. Still, I don't know that. Whatever I am looking for is not something logic or heart can help me with, because both comprehension and nature are insidious, fundamentally broken to turn on other humans and yourself. It is something that can't be identified and thus reproduced and shared, but whatever Melina said must have been connected with it if it made me stop believing in FF as the good thing. It could be about finding your own way, that can't be shared with others, but this means everyone else has the capacity to find their own way. In the end, no one has the right to take that chance away from them; not to spite God, not to end endless suffering, not for anything.

[cassie-is-trans]

Fully hidden 😅

Setting up the weekend of rope!