#do people believe that crusades began because some dude on the cloud asked for it?

[yournextflame]

Does the Greater Will exist?

One of the most interesting aspectcs of the Elden Ring worldbuilding is a blend between fantasy and science. Miyazaki already played with the concepts of enthropy and light is time in Dark Souls. Elden Ring is even less subtle: gravity is a category of sorcery, characters are named after paleontological eras, Fundamentalism operates via mathematical principles, DNA helix is a recurring motif in the various designs; this game is dangerously close of becoming a full-blown mix of magic and sci-fi, although it never crosses the line. It's especially intriguing that the Greater Will, the mysterious force, which is usually viewed as an eldrich/abrahamic god by the players, isn't what it seems on the first sight and probably doesn't exist as an actual deity. In fact, all known actions of the Greater Will sound like a mythological retelling of existing scientific concepts and theories.

Let's start with a genesis myth narrated by Hyetta:

All got separated from the great one thing. Separated, birthed and given a soul. But that was a mistake of the Great Will [JP]

The Big Bang hypothesis states that all of the current and past matter in the Universe came into existence at the same time, roughly 13.8 billion years ago. At this time, all matter was compacted into a very small particle with infinite density and intense heat called a Singularity. Suddenly, the Singularity began expanding, and the universe as we know it began.

Description of the Elden Stars, the oldest known incantation in history:

It is said that long ago, the Greater Will sent a golden star bearing a beast into the Lands Between, which would later become the Elden Ring.

Ever since the discovery of organic molecules in a meteorite that landed in Australia about half a century ago, scientists have been tantalized by the theory, which suggests that life is originated in space, in spatial ices, and continuously distributed to the planets by comets and meteorites.

[Elden Stars icon looks like DNA helix]

Description of Cinquedea dagger contains cut content, but I'm still counting on it because the symbol of intellegence portrayed as a slab of gold.

The design celebrates a beast's five fingers, symbolic of the intelligence once granted upon their kind [cut content from version 1.0] by the Greater Will. Hands were a fundamental ingredient to start making tools. The process of making tools might have also helped the evolution of other human assets such as memory, long-term planning, or social organization. 

All 2(3) lnown actions of the Greater Will are tied to the scientific concepts: Big Bang hypothesis, theory that organic molecules originated in space and were distributed to the Earth via meteorites, and evoltion. Usually "the Greater Will" mentioned in the mythological interpretation of events that don't need to involve any creator deity at all to happen.

Religion is one of the form of the psychological adaptations - tendency to see a human-like agency behind unknown mysterious events, ancient Greeks interpreted thunder as a wrath of Zeus, maori believed that earthquakes were Ruamoko's movements inside the Mother Earth's body, Shinto has thousands and thousands kami - elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express.

Notably, there's nothing about the Greater Will that's particularly tied to the religion, especially Golden Order, the same people, who are calling Marika a god, never refer GW as such, it doesn't have churches, talismans or idols, at best there are Two Fingers - pathetic outcasts on the edge of Golden Order.

However, there is an interesting quote from the description of Nox set, which recasts the Greater Will from a neutral force of nature into a petty, vengeful deity... or not?

In ancient times, the Nox felt the wrath of the Greater Will. They were destroyed and escaped deep beneath the earth [JP]

English descriptions says that Nox were banished, implying that the Greater Will was directly involved into the exile of Nox. But Japanese wording is different: something happened on the surface of the Lands Between that forced Nox to escape underground.

My theory is that "the wrath of the Greater Will" is meteor shower.

This talisman represents the lost black moon. The moon of Nokstella was the guide of countless stars/Said to be a fragment of the black moon that once hung above the Eternal City

Consider this: Nox black moon was destroyed and the fragments of it rained on the Lands Between, causing a series of catastrophic events on the surface, which forced Nox to seek the shelter underground. It is unclear what happened with the black moon, but knowing the fact that Nox killed a god (the shape of Fingerslayer Blade is almost identical to the Sacred Relic sword) and a strong connection between Nox/Carian royalty and moons, I suspect that black moon was a collateral damage of the Eternal Cities downfall. I will give more meat to this theory in my post about Nox culture, there are some interesting info hidden in Japanese (滅び), but my point is that people of the Lands Between have a habit to interpret a major historical changes and natural disasters as the "will" of the Greater Will.

But I wouldn't go full on Nietzsche "the god is dead" on GW. The outer gods are even simplier by nature and they are sctricly bounded to their metaphysical concepts, but they exist. They can be sealed and wounded, GW can be harmed too (Fingerslayer Blade description), but I doubt that they have an actual anthropomorphic features, motivations and behaviors. Thus, the same goes for the Greater Will, even if it actually exists, it's probably functions like described in this quote: it creates for the sake's of creation, evolves things and gives life its fullest brilliance:

The universe, equipped with nothing but the materials and the power of creation, continues to create: something of this, something of that. It cannot control what it creates and it cannot, it seems, be controlled by its creations (though a few might deceive themselves otherwise). Those who curse the workings of the universe curse that which is deaf. Those who strike out at those workings fight that which is inviolate. Those who shake their fists, shake their fists at blind stars (Michael John Moorcock)

[yes, yes, I like this quote]

Okay, but the Greater Will has vassals. Wouldn't it imply some form of hierarchy and control? Well, one of its vassals is the Elden Beast, an alternate form of the Elden Ring, which can be changed and modified by human hands. The Elden Beast is incredibly passive and demonstrates a very particular reluctancy towards fighting, hence it spends more time swimming away from Tarnished than attacking. There is a theory based on certain animation that it crucified Marika, but considering that Elden Ring, in fact, is a living being, it was a self-defence.

Although it's not mentioned anywhere, I hightly doubt that golden hallucigenia had any involvement in political climate of Marika's empire. But we have an example of the opposite, when the other known vassals of the Greater Will - Two Fingers, were used for the personal gains of the local rulers.

The unreability of Two Fingers is mentioned a lot on game, from Gideon to Patches, many characters are pointing that GW vassals don't fucntion properly. Their "words" are questionable from the start, while intro says that the Greater Will abandoned the Lands Between a long time ago, Two Fingers in the illusory Roundtable Hold created by Marika (we know that she chained Hewg here) are claiming that it's still active.

It's getting worse with a time, Confessors lore suggests that Two Fingers believe the the guidance of the grace is controlled by GW, but from melina's echoes we can learn that the grace belongs to Marika.

Finally, in the late game it is revealed that for a real contact with GW - if there is any, Fingers with their dial-up connection need thousands and thousands moons.

There is a very noticeable information vacuum in the game, all Two Fingers are dead (with two suspicious exceptions), all Finger maidens are dead in the end too, the lack of knowledges about what's going on is so bad that one of the most valuable pieces of information we are recieving from... Three Fingers and their insane maiden.

But why does this vacuum exist?

One of the most prominent examples of Two Fingers decieving Tarnished is the main quest, in which Tarnished supposed to become consort of Marika:

Now, seek the Erdtree, and an audience with Queen Marika. To become Elden Lord, and restore the Golden Order. But Two Fingers at the Roundtable are never mentioning existence of the other candidates to the godhood, which their crew picked up before the Shattering:

the Age of Queen Marika ends, a precious Empyrean is born to become God so they can establish a new Order [JP] Of the demigods, only I, Miquella, and Malenia could claim that title. Each of us was chosen by our own Two Fingers, as a candidate to succeed Queen Marika, to become the new god of the coming age. [oh the irony, in the end of her quest Ranni actually fulfills the task of Two Fingers]

This whole situation makes me think that Two Fingers system is barely functional and basically repurposed to frame the local rulers as avatars of higher cosmic powers, who are doing what their are doing on the behalf of the greater... will.

The concept of divine right of kings stems from a specific metaphysical framework in which a monarch is, before birth, pre-ordained to inherit the crown. According to this theory of political legitimacy, the subjects of the crown have actively (and not merely passively) turned over the metaphysical selection of the king's soul – which will inhabit the body and rule them – to God.

Basically, almost every royal dynasty in the world pretended that they are descendants of the gods or were appointed by the gods to their position. Just one of many examples:

The Mandate of Heaven, the "Heaven's will" is a Chinese political philosophy that was used in ancient and imperial China to legitimize the rule of the King or Emperor of China. According to this doctrine, heaven (天, Tian) – which embodies the natural order and will of the universe – bestows the mandate on a just ruler of China, the "Son of Heaven".

This doctrine sounds very familiar, right?

In the Elden Ring the concept of Divine Rights is partially legitimized in form of Empyreans chosen by Fingers. I said "partially" because Empyreans are candidates to the godhood, not gods. There is a quote common misconception born from straightforward and surface-level of reading Ranni's questline that Empyreans are forced into godhood, and some of them, like Marika, were directly approached by the Greater Will to become the vessels of the Elden Ring.

It doesn't help that Golden Order deliberately erased existence of the other forms of worships, and this propaganda is so convincing that it affects even the playerbase. Ironically, the same people, who hate the Golden Order and everything associated with it, continue to believe that there are no gods but Marika with the blind fanatism of brother Corhyn, even though the plot shows that the system of gods and their lords was estabilished a long, long time ago.

[not only Farum Azula has the Elden Ring of the older Order, but it also shows it together with Twinbird carving, which depicts a mother of Deathbirds, envoys of an outer god] This again, unlike the Greater Will and the outer gods, who existed and coexisted for millenias, gods like Marika are supposed to be changed every age by Two Fingers. But Golden Order was founded on principle that Marika was one and only god; and even though this lie is constantly uncovered in the game in different ways - Radagon exists, other Empyreans exist, previous vessels of the Elden Ring existed; the imagery of the tragic queen, who was forcibly made into eternal slave by the evil god and should be saved by the greatest hero of the Lands Between, is so appealing that people would rather argue that Placidusax title of the Elden Lord is a developers mistake than accept that the queen is the alien pest herself. The face of the Numen, supposed descendants of denizens of another world The portrayal of the outer gods and the Greater Will is very interesting, the first group is always vilified because they are outsiders to the Order, this alienation translates through the screen as well. Similar thing happened with the Greater Will, which is blamed for the faults of the Golden Order, although it is possible that it doesn't even exist as an actual entity, let alone as something with human-like goals and interests.