#frenzied flame proscription

[knightofleo]

The Frenzied Flame Merchant's Violin Song from Elden Ring

[witchblade]

get your crumbling ass to farum azula

[the-mighty-glow-cloud]

uh oh girlies i've entered a new elden ring fixation era

[tlgtw]

Bits and pieces of the still incredibly written backstory of Elden Ring continue to poke out from the dogwater, as it were.

St. Trina, as we learn, was a specific aspect of Miquella that was made separate: In Miquella's words, St Trina was the embodiment of his 'love.' And when he abandoned St Trina, he abandoned that aspect of himself that made her.

This newly introduced example reveals to us what the nature of Radagon's exactly was, in turn.

Radagon, the 'other half' of Marika in the exact same way that St Trina had been for Miquella, we learn here, had *himself* been a specific singular aspect of Marika's emotions or feelings.

With St Trina having been made out of Miquella's 'love.'

You wonder, too, what Radagon should have been made from.

What aspect of herself did Marika separate into her second person, as called by her the "Loyal Dog of the Golden Order"? We know Radagon was created prior to the creation of the Golden Order itself, since he was involved in the invasion of Liurnia.

So at the same time as Marika was married to Godfrey, begetting Godwyn and Mogh and Morgott. Radagon was married to Renalla, begetting Rykard and Radahn and raising the potential successor of Marika--the Empyrean Ranni. He was given a massive amount of responsibility, the seeming crux of the Liurnian-Leyndell alliance that ended the Liurnian Wars that Marika's empire was losing, and he by every account was completely dedicated and successful; even weakening the strength of the Carian royal family by reducing their practicing of astrology.

All yet, when push came to shove: After Godwyn was assassinated and Marika sought to destroy the Elden Ring. It was Radagon who dropped everything he had and stepped in to stop her.

"Proudly" as his Golden Order Greatsword says,

Radagon divorced his first wife, married his 'original self,' begettedthe Twin Prodigies Miquella and Malenia as two more potential successors to Queen Marika, set up the brutal inquisition and censorship of the Age of Radagon headed by his own son Rykard, and was even involved with the very the development of Golden Order fundamentalism!

Radagon did so much fucking stuff! He was so damn proactive! So what exactly must he have been!?

That Marika initially separated from herself? And who went on to try and stop her very own plans when they turned against the wishes of the Greater Will??

This conflicting 'half' of her original person! That nonetheless was all this strongly willed on his own!?

What part of Marika COULD Radagon have originally been!?!?!?

And it's awesome. It's really really well-designed writing.

Frankly, even, it's genius. It's not anything revolutionary in terms of narrative devices or anything like that, but it's really elegant. It's really meaningful and concise, and it's really cool!!!

A lot of Elden Ring's base game is, or now maybe--was. (It having been the basis of my entire show on YouTube.)

But the actual story, instead of solely the backstory, of the DLC, unfortunately, is not!

You ever seen a boss item whose entire description was literally entirely the game just fucking QUOTING ITSELF?

Hyetta at Frenzied Flame Proscription: "Become their lord. Take their torment, despair. Their affliction. Every sin, every curse. And melt it all away. As the Lord of Chaos."

Ghost outside Church of Inhibition in Liurnia: "Ahh, Lord Vyke, it seems that you were no lord, after all."

Midras's Flame of Frenzy, from killing Midras, Lord of Frenzied Flame:

Or! Better yet, ANOTHER boss spell, whose entire description is dedicated to literally just acknowledging its fucking colour!!

Land of Shadows, from killing the Scadutree Avatar:

I definitely sure wish I still hadn't!!

In fact, I don't think the level of vacuousness from Shadow of the Erdtree's descriptions has ever been seen before!

Not even in Dark Souls 3!!

AUGH

[mac-tirs]

i mentioned it in the replies of one of my posts, but i love how tied morgott and mohg are in soul despite their differences. their great runes occupying the same tower is one thing, but the possibilities that they work together in some capacity despite having such fundamental differences in beliefs is so interesting.

there's nothing that explicitly states that they're collaborating on anything, but i feel you can get real far if you let your mind wander. their shared occupation of the shunning grounds, morgott and mohg's matching shackles, morgott's sword having that bloodflame slice ability, the complimentary ways that they fight with morgott's speed and mohg's strength, mohg's illusion guarding the frenzied flame proscription with morgott's seal hidden behind him... there's so much to work with there!

the last part is what interests me the most, tbh. something peculiar about this setup is how morgott's illusions work; when he summons margit in stormveil and out in altus, gold shimmers around him while a symbol bearing the sigil of the crucible appears on the ground beneath margit. when he summons godfrey's spirit, the same symbol and golden hue appears on him. but with mohg, no such gold appears, nor any symbol. he merely materialises out of thin air.

this is interesting because of the fact that this means morgott didn't summon him. not only because he doesn't show up with the symbol or gold, but also because when you kill morgott, his margit illusions in stormveil and altus also disappear if you don't kill them before morgott. this doesn't happen with mohg in the sewers, who can be fought before you even get to godfrey, even if you kill mohg in his palace first before any of them. but why is that?

i personally believe that it's because mohg's illusion is not one born from the same magic that morgott uses for his incantations. i know, shocking, the golden order fanboy and the formless mother fanboy use different spells, but it does serve to explain why mohg's illusion stays even when the man himself was slain first. it sets their magic apart very clearly and decisively, but also grants more insight into their collaboration.

mainly because i think that morgott and mohg working together on this can fit into 2 different possible reasonings behind the nature of their relationship. the first being that this is a begrudging truce built off of mutual respect and fear of the frenzied flame, and that they don't agree on much else beyond that and are estranged otherwise. the second being that they still work together in some capacity and still hold even the slightest bit of affection for each other, and guardianship over the frenzied flame using the magic they are best at (illusions and seals) is testament to that.

both are plenty compelling, though i find myself more drawn to the 2nd reason. i wonder if there was a time before miquella where mohg was establishing his dynasty and his brother, a fanatic of the golden order, turned a blind eye to his actions out of love. its probable that morgott and mohg never publicly acknowledged their familial connection, since neither varre nor ansbach make any mention of mohg having a brother, nor does anyone (barring shaneheight) know that morgott is actually an omen. it could be that, when mohg left the sewers to establish his dynasty, morgott let the matter lie and the two went their separate ways rather amicably, if a little bitter.

as per usual, this was just a huge ramble with no direction. just musings pretty much. i love thinking about these guys a lot.

[blaiddfailcam]

So have you ever wondered why exactly Edgar invades at this seemingly random shack in Liurnia?

As it turns out, this location aligns itself with a few other noteworthy points across the map, each pertaining in some part to the Frenzied Flame:

Revenger's Shack site of grace

Hyetta's exact position at the Frenzied Flame Proscription

Lord Contendor's Evergaol, where Vyke immured himself

By placing beacons at these three points, then standing just southwest of the one set at the Revenger's Shack site of grace, the three points will align near-perfectly on the mini-compass. (Strangely enough, the Church of Vows also falls neatly along this path.)

This is just one of many such examples of hidden map syzygies in Elden Ring. They're not at all important details, but I find them interesting for how they reinforce the lore and the theme of fated encounters.

[luminaryofblood]

Mohg, the Omen, who can be found guarding the entrance to the Frenzied Flame Proscription. A place known as the Cathedral of the Forsaken, when he himself was among the forsaken.

What makes it sadder is, in a chest before the chapel, is a variant of the Erdtree's Favor; a talisman which depicts Queen Marika, the mother who had forsaken him and Morgott.

[cyborg-squid]

Something that's got me really curious, ever since I got the Outer God Talisman, is how deep Mohg's connection to the Mother of Truth and the Bloodfiends found in the Land of Shadows go. The talisman description "The clan, who lost everything in the great fires, peered upon the corpse of their ancestor, normally an act of sanctity, and saw in its shadow a twisted deity. The clan had suffered such torment that the horrible thing was taken as an object of worship." and the visual on it looks like one of the enshrined Tutelary Deities of the Hornsent, as well as the great fires possibly referring to the acts of Messmer. But there's also the fact that the Bloodfiends don't look like Hornsent, they have the faces of mole rats and I don't see any horns on them, and the spirit ash description of Bloodfiend Hexer refers to them as a "subjugated tribe", so it might be possible that whatever the Bloodfiends were previously were subjugated by the Hornsent, which does fit with what Leda said about the Hornsent not being saints.

So you have Mohg, an Omen with horns, connected to the Mother of Truth, who is also connected to a species without horns, but that species is also found in the land of people with a lot of horns. You also have the fact that the magic used by sewer Omens (and Dung Eater) (and that comes bursting out of Morgott), that black and brown curse mixture, is completely different than the blood magic used by Mohg and the Bloodfiends. Said Omen "magic" also looks to be kinda different from the spells and such used by the Hornsent, but I haven't looked to closely at them yet.

So my main idea is that: the Omen in the Lands Between are not persecuted because of any direct blood connection they have to the Hornsent, but rather simply because they have a visual connection through horns that resemble the Hornsents, and they similarly lack Grace. And it was there, in the sewers and desperation, that Mohg came upon the Mother of Wounds, similar to how, in the wake of tragedy, the Bloodfiends too were touched by Her. And on a similar note, while it is a completely different Outer God, the story here also bears a resemblance to the Frenzied Flame and how it came to be connected with the Merchants tribe... whose set and Frenzied Flame Proscription are found right behind the sewer Mohg fight. HMMMMM.......

[wraith-caller]

This video shows that there used to be an elevator that would take you between the Deeproot Depths and the Consecrated Snowfields. While I'm sort of glad they removed it (I feel like the area is given way more of a mysterious and foreboding atmosphere with the entry points being so challenging and obscure to access), it being there would do A LOT to explain how Devin and Fia (and possibly Lionel) made it down there.

As it stands now, the only way for Devin to have gotten to Godwyn's corpse is through the very difficult, very secret entrance from outside the Frenzied Flame Proscription. It's an insanely difficult route to navigate, and given that the entrance to the Deeproots is hidden behind an illusory wall there, it makes you wonder WHO it was even known to. I imagine not many would be aware of it, and I'm inclined to attribute its existence to Morgott given his expertise with illusions being displayed repeatedly throughout the game. It may be a path he kept to himself, taking it now and then to visit Godwyn's corpse. (and possibly to keep an eye on things down there after what happened with Vyke.) Nokron isn't open to others until after Radahn is killed, so the only way for Devin to have gotten there as things stand now is through the Deeproots. If there was an elevator, then that journey becomes way more feasible and simplified not just for him, but for Fia and Lionel. (I'm inclined to believe Lionel has been down there because we find his staff in the Eternal City just before Godwyn's corpse. This would also explain how Fia ended up with the weathered dagger that obviously belonged to one of the D twins, likely Devin.)

Another interesting thing about this elevator is that it is close to the secret path to the Haligtree. Given Miquella's desire to help Godwyn, it makes me wonder if he's the one who had this elevator placed here. It'd make it a lot easier for him to go back and forth to Godwyn's corpse. We know he's made multiple efforts at relieving his suffering but that they've failed, and to know they failed he would probably need to go to Godwyn to be sure of it.

[val-of-the-north]

Basically, @katyspersonal​ has recently discovered the true importance of the Flame of Frenzy in Elden Ring’s world, so we have been discussing it together a bit. You know, normal stuff, like its effect on the world of the game, the real life parallels and all the philosophical baggage that comes with it... mostly wether or not it’s a good thing to pursue.

Of course, I share that personally, I don’t think it’s fair to decide the fate of existence itself, stripping away agency from everyone who has always lived and will live. My stance was met with quite the opposition from my friend, claiming that I was thinking at the basest of plains and that I was being shallow with my answer. She believed that it was actually justified if it meant ending the collective suffering of everyone, claiming that this decision would trascend morality and that it wouldn’t matter anyways if everything stops existing/becomes one whole.

So we kept arguing for a while, with pearls of wisdom from Kat such as “well if other people are too dumb to understand the futility of life I am just being responsible, not cruel” or “See, you feel pain too! So die“ popping out from time to time, all the while we were trying to one up each other in a pretty pointless game of philosophical questions, with me going “it’s not fair!” and her responding “but if nothing exists then that stops being a problem!”, or the "Kat this is EXACTLY how he gets in your head" vs her "it is not my fault you jump into 'hurr hurr but mass destruction bad' instead of actually thinking", so on and so forth... at least we ended up agreeing that Shabriri was a skank regardless of what the right answer to this existential query was.

Well, she finally got to the Frenzied Flame Proscription today and she got to hear Melina’s dialogue, trying to dissuade her from taking the Flame of Frenzy by appealing to her humanity, telling her there’s beauty in the fact that life endures even through hardships and that it’s not fair to deny everyone their chance at life by destroying the world.

And Kat started saying that her dialogue was so sweet and nice, and that the moment itself felt very heartfelt and cute... and I was sitting there feeling like:

[glassbirdfeather]

Yo! I'm new to tumblr, kinda. Made an account a buncha years ago but now I'm actually using it! I didn't think Elden Ring was talked about here, but seeing a multi paragraph essay about Mohg's horn surely changed that. But with all of that out of the way, I'd like your perspective on something. It seems many tarnished online believe that embracing the Flame of Frenzy and robbing Melina of her purpose as a Finger Maiden is "saving her". This is very obviously wrong, or else Melina wouldn't vow to kill you if she felt she was being saved. She doesn't merely vow to kill you, either. She explicitly plans to bring you Destined Death. She is going to ULTRAkill you. Yet many tarnished still interpret the Flame of Frenzy as an option to "save" Melina. This confuses me, and I was wondering if you had any idea why this interpretation is so popular.

Well, you're definitely saving her from self-immolation, people are right about that. Whether her existence as a "burned and bodiless" spirit is one worth 'living' is up to interpretation. She may not think so.

But perhaps she does. After all, Ranni seems… fine? With not having a flesh body? Sleeps a lot, but plenty of people do. Sellen doesn't care. Stick Melina in a doll and maybe she'd be pretty cool with it. The key thing here is, if she does think her existence is one she could enjoy if she had another way, the absolute destruction of everything forever-and-always is not something she considers an acceptable trade.

You can reverse the Frenzy ending with the needle so she survives, but doesn't come after you during the end cutscene because you're not burning down the world--of course, it isn't a stretch to think she still resents you. Whether or not you take this as her letting go of her vow to ultrakill you, since this keeps her from ending her existence, some people consider it worth her eternal grudge.

Personally, I consider Melina the not-irritating version of Fi from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. I don't think her character arc was handled very well, I think she didn't demonstrate much personality, and I think there was not enough agency to her to feel like she was ever a 'real' person instead of a gameplay mechanic with a voice. She went from "I need to go here to find my purpose," to "This is my purpose I was given by someone else and I'm going to do it," so any motivations or desires she might have beyond that are up to fandom interpretation.

Why is this interpretation so popular? I dunno, not to be flippant, but, uhhhh, maybe people don't care to look much further than "Oh noes, mah waifu's on fire D:" and don't consider why she might be okay with or even want that? There can be fandom spaces for thirsting after your favorite Elden Ring girlie AND spaces for in-depth, canon-focused lore discussions. Not everyone is into both. Just. Make sure you know which one you're in.

On the other hand, I'm sure there ARE some people who will insist that this is the best ending because you save her, and that means it's definitely a black-and-white choice and of course she's better off this way. There's no nuance there, because, after all, being alive(?) is better than being dead!

And those people are lacking in critical thinking skills and media literacy because their education system has failed them. While I could go down the rabbit hole of why that is (at least, in the USA), that's probably not what you were looking for with this ask.

----

Funny enough, I think Melina shows the most of her own values and perception of the world right outside the Frenzy Flame Proscription where she pleas to you that births continue and there is still beauty in the world.

[transshion]

melinas dialogue when you reach the frenzied flame proscription genuinely is making me so sad...im sorry girlie 😢

[criticalglitch]

FRENZIED FLAME PROSCRIPTION LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH IN YOUNG TARNISHED!

Seek not the Frenzied Flame! National Perfumer research shows that the gravity in the forsaken depths is the #1 cause of premature death in Leyndell-touring tarnished.

Be Wise. Forget the Madness Guys.

[fagarach]

going to the frenzied flame proscription do any of you want anything

[tlgtw]

-- Calderas? --

Here's something I've been chewing on for fun:

The presence of basalt in and around the Altus Plateau depicts, specifically, that it was made by a volcano. Mt Gelmir is way too small and way too young of course, to be the one responsible for having formed the region of Altus. So where's this volcano that did make it?

How conspicuous…! That huge crater-ous lake we find the city of Leyndell built inside of! Built out from, in fact. As the path before the Forbidden Lands shows us, along with the Divine Bridge, the outermost buildings of Leyndell are all partly built underwater! (Notably excluding all the buildings already on raised dry ground around the lake's center--what would perhaps be a caldera's 'resurgent dome' in this scenario--supporting mostly the wealthier gold-roofed districts of Leyndell, specifically. All of which, made of stone as they are, surviving far less-charred than the various wooden structures burnt up by Gransax's attack, for whom only their overcooked frames remain. Perhaps all of these buildings were simply lucky enough to have been on stable ground. Unlike, perhaps, where every building we don't see was built upon. Between the some-40% of Leyndell's surviving structures that we play through and the giant sealed door from the inner wall, now mere empty space above the lake, and so on.)

And the appearance of those mountainsides to Leyndell's north, east, and south.

…

If, then, Leyndell is in-fact built in the caldera of this 'Altus Volcano,' what could that make the long vertical passage leading to the Frenzied Flame Proscription, the very bottom of the Subterranean Shunning-Grounds? What would that make the area known as the Deeproot Depths, where the Nox had built their now-nameless Eternal City 1!? Or the Siofra and Ainsel rivers that descend from it, where the Nox later built the twin Eternal Cities of Nokron and Nostella…!?

The mural above the Erdtree's door, past the Elden Throne, depicts the Erdtree and the Elden Ring in sequence as if they all make up the body of some kind of arrow. The question wavers as to what exact in-universe object or concept this 'arrow design' is supposed to be narratively representing: The shooting star referenced in the Elden Stars incantation? A weapon of war to symbolize the Golden Order's invasion?

I think, though, that a better question is this: What, or where, is this 'arrow' supposed to have pierced?

After all, if there really was a massive volcano like this, to have carved out the underground rivers, and built the Altus Plateau, what's made it extinct? Ordinary tectonics, from millions of years ago? Or something 'outside,' far more recent!?

It's really something to glare at, I find.

I talk about this in more detail along with a few other things in one part of the upcoming Episode 2 for ERwSET.

And at this point, barring any kind of disaster happening, I can guarantee 100% that it will be out before the beginning of May. I will admit to hoping--I'm not crazy enough to say 'expect' just yet--that it will instead be out long before that day. But "before the beginning of May" I think I can now say is absolute. (Donate to my OF so I can afford to make it faster!!)

At the very least, Episode 2's production is progressing very very well. And is shaping up, I reckon, to have an actual chance at really blowing some people's heads off upon release. I hope it isn't just my imagination, but time will tell in time.

In any case, I've decided on bringing special attention to this idea now on account of us finally having a name for Elden Ring's DLC. With a title like "Shadow of the Erdtree," I think, we'll now have some damn-decent odds at finding out about the Lands Between's earlier days, and the actual genesis of this organism, the 'Erdtree,' itself.

It's all very very exciting.

I'll Be Yours, T-L-G-T-W