what’s ur take on the shadow people in the land of shadow? i’m intrigued by what other people think. i haven’t thought about it too much but my impression was that it’s quite literally the phrase “a shadow of their former selves” made manifest. these people have been stripped of everything, their way of life, their people, their culture, their right to live freely. they’ve fallen into despair similarly to how people become ‘infected’ with frenzy, but it feels colder… there’s a sadness to them. some of them sit and build little towers out of rocks.
when i first ran into them i assumed they were ghosts that we couldn’t interact with, and then they started throwing rocks at me and brandishing knives. these people are hurting and have done for a long time. maybe they were burned with messmer’s flame and can’t die thanks to marika’s removal of the rune of death? it’s quite ironic that her action of removing death meant she could never fully enact her intended ‘revenge’ on the hornsent, because no one can truly die.
1st:
Since there appears to be some kind of veil in the sky, the land of shadow could be located under the sea in the middle of the land between. Kind of like Hyrule in Wind Waker
2nd:
The land between is a flat world and the land of shadows is located in its flipside. You might say it exists, in a way, in the shadow of the Erdtree.
I was running around aimlessly in the Shadow Keep, past the Jars in what looked to be some kind of hospital wing of the Keep? and then I shot down this spicy red fire sorcerer Salza were the devs hungry?
and found this place! the Ancient Ruins of Rauh.
As soon as I opened the gates, I saw this beautiful landscape.
There's something truly magical and enchanting about this game.
I've played so many open world games with beautiful lands, but there's just something about Elden Ring that has charmed me.
Maybe its the low-to-the-ground fog, the pastures and trees with animals peacefully going about their days, the tranquility amidst all the disorder and pain of the world.
The Lands Between are cruel and unforgiving, but on the way from one killing to the next, there are so many beautiful things to appreciate.
Having finished all of the DLC, something that comes to mind is that I feel there is some ambiguity as to the real reason the Land of Shadows was casted away.
There is, obviously, the simple explanation that Messmer's campaign of vengeance upon the hornsent was so horrific and brutal, that Marika had no choice but to erase it completely, and Messmer with it.
But it could also be that she wanted to hide away her home village, the only memory left of her time before being a goddess. And it might have been to protect it from undeserving eyes, or it might have also been to hide away the trail of how she became a goddess.
And it might have also been to hide away the Gate of Divinity, the place where she became a Goddess, so no one else could have done the same. And depending on your reading of Marika, this might have been her paranoia that someone might try to use it and become a challenger to her rule, or what she saw as the biggest mercy she could give anyone.
My wife had the phenomenal theory that what we're seeing isn't exactly the Erdtree with another tree coiled around it, but the roots of the Erdtree, due to her idea that the Land of Shadow is a reflection of the real world.
She also theorized that the reason there are so many spectral gravestones is related to Erdtree burial.
Then shouldering their burdens, they set off, seeking a path that would bring them over the grey hills of the Emyn Muil, and down into the Land of Shadow.
"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" - J.R.R. Tolkien
I really should draw the proper continuation to this comic but insteeeeeead... let's go the super indulgent route ;P
As a self indulgent bonus here is the Jeff the land shark already in his costume. And, continuing my headcanon that Miguel's lab is everybody's fave napping spot, that duckie blankie is totally Mayday's ;)