#these are books of reasonable length.
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I AM attempting to read at least four books this weekend and that IS ridiculous but alas, here we are.
#no one look at my other fucking post I am NOT attempting proust okay#these are books of reasonable length.#here's my thing with proust. yeah yeah 'perfect novel' fuck you. that is not a novel. that is a series.#I don't care if it's one entity. so the fuck was lord of the rings and we have deemed that three books at this point.#just because a story is sustained does NOT make it a singular novel. I'll kill.#to be clear this is a joke. as mentioned I know literally nothing about proust and I have already forgotten the novel's title.#as per fucking usual.#honestly I'm gonna read it someday solely so maybe I understand what the fuck people are talking about.#anyway the books for the weekend are: authority (vandermeer). the gift of knowledge/ttnúwit átawish nch'inch'imani (beavert).#acceptance (also vandermeer). waterlog (deakin).#YES I once again saw robert macfarlane's name and blacked out and purchase a book. do not @ me.#(I did want to read waterlog after having read landmarks and then saw the new paperback edition on a stand at the bookstore so shhhh)#megs is reading#in my defense I'm going to be spending a lot of time waiting this weekend considering my spouse is in a race not designed for spectating#(it's a massive seven-part relay. and he's in a part where you can't even get in to spectate so.)#I'm mostly tagging along with my sister and her bf's friends so. books are necessary.#I've always been that dweeb with the book in social settings and I'm not about to stop now.
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man i love the les mis musical but it really doesn't do its characters justice 😭
#les miserables#les mis#novapost#like i fear even valjean and javert get a bit compressed#though they don't have it as bad as everyone else esp cosette#like that girl could almost be replaced w a lamp here. almost.#and marius becomes a little too 1d for my liking w his obsession over cosette#like yes that is a thing abt him but idk#it's just. Hm.#kinda par for the course when trying to adapt such a large book into a musical of reasonable length#still tho
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Ok, I'm really curious: do you refer to fanfiction as "books?" If so, why? Do you only call long fics that or all of them? Do you remember when you first saw fics being referred to as such? Judgement free zone, I promise.
#i do not for many reasons#one of which is book to me implies length#and not all of my fic is long enough and i don't want to say i write books and fic#also im a traditionalist i suppose lol
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I love how Callum is like "Tristan doesn't keep up emotional shields around me cause because I am soooo skilled with my powers that it'd be a waste of effort aha" like *grabs him by the throat* IT'S CAUSE HE TRUSTS YOU CALLUM *shakes him* STUPID STUPID BABY HE TRUSTS YOU
#the lengths book 1 callum will go to pretend that what they have with each other is nothing *that* intense so he doesn't have to fear#tristan leaving him (like everyone else) are insane#“astoundingly that is the primary extent of your worth to me tristan. ample conversation at least.”#like omg callum you are sooo crazy trying to downplay finding the other half of your soul#normal people when they when they fall in love for the first time: aftagjsdvdjhd i DON'T care guys i DON'T I'm just gonna manipulate him a#bit for normal non-sexy reasons OOOOOH he's gonnnaa leeeeeavvve meeeeee i mean i DON'T care what we have is very casual so casual#callum nova#the atlas six#tristan caine#tristan x callum#novacaine
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Oc aged up? Redesign? Doodle
#goal was to make him 2x as unlikeable than before lmao#I think story bits are putting themselves together#older cot is now in a position of leadership#Vv left the team or retired for reasons after a big fight#during which xieran lost an eye and all of them got traumatized#cot grapples with the feeling of betrayal from Vv leaving them but also understanding of their reasons and cot’s own desire to retire#cot doesn’t like playing by the rule book anymore and actively goes out of their way to make things difficult for everyone besides xieran#ie getting paperwork done on time and then hiding it so the people who need it can’t find it or have to go to extreme lengths to find it#stops caring altogether for the organization which they work for#maybe even has several contingencies or leverage to bring the organization down to its knees#and instead of using it just dangles it over their head for the amusement of their grappling and vulnerability#their own petty revenge for what he perceives as the organization forcing his closest friend to break under pressure and leave#he also knows fully well that bringing down the organization would be forcing the several hundreds under their employment into poverty#which he doesn’t do mostly because xieran still exists as a voice of reason for them#probably feels some amount of guilt for being the only unharmed out of the battle that injured xieran and pushed Vv to retirement#after all their role is never at the front line. at the best they are a distance attacker#because they insist on bringing a gun to a sword fight
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Elden Ring - The Fool's Journey
The Fool of the tarot deck is sometimes interpreted as the protagonist of a story and the procession of the Major Arcana as the steps of this story. The Fool begins with nothing but the ignorant faith to undertake a journey full of hardship and pain, and believe that in the end they will reenter the world with new understanding. But the journey never ends, and so The Fool soon begins another cycle and strives for greater heights of understanding.
Rider-Waite-Smith tarot developed by members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
Spoilers ahead from some specific characters from other FromSoft games (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Armored Core V).
Prophesy and Storytelling and Fate
Prophesy is a literary device. It's a kind of promise from the author to the reader that there will be a payoff for the planting and the prophesy will come true. So effectively when prophets in-universe are able to know the future it is because they have a direct access to the will of the author. The common form of the prophesy is that it is written vaguely, and retroactively shown to suit the events that actually occurred. The belief of the Fool that they can follow the proscribed steps and achieve mastery of the world is a kind of prophesy.
Elden Ring has the prophet class, and the Prophet insists that the path of the future is already laid out. One method of fortune telling is palmistry which is the reading the lines on a hand to predict a person's future. And the Finger Readers strongly allude to this, as well as Godrick directly acknowledging that palm reading is fashionable in the Capitol in volume 1 of the Road to the Erdtree manga. So the Prophet starts with the Two Finger's Seal and the Two Fingers are associated with fortune telling, and Blaidd - a Shadowbound beast assigned by the Two Fingers - is one of only two characters to ever mention the concept of "cards". Tarot card readings being another practice of fortune telling.
"The wheel of fate has been set into motion. If it's on the cards, I'd be glad to meet again." - Blaidd, after Radahn festival if not in Ranni's service"
"There is no denying it, now. A culling appears to be on the cards. One that won't overlook even an aging soldier as myself..." - Sir Ansbach, upon being repeatedly attacked
However, where these two methods differ is that the state of a person's hand (and thus the reading they would be given) is partly influenced by the features that a person was born with and partly by what the hand has been used for. In fact, the joke in the manga is that by grafting so many arms Godrick has taken the fortunes of others to give himself more to choose from. He has tried to subvert palmistry by defying the fixed path set by the hands he was born with. Grafting was his unsuccessful effort to cheat fate.
"One day, we'll return together. To our home, bathed in rays of gold.... ...Not the fool Omen King. Nor the rank malformed twins. O, we are the Golden Ones. The true and rightful heirs." - cut dialogue from Godrick the Grafted
In comparison, a tarot reading is done by choosing cards at random. But from a literary perspective it would be poor setup and payoff to shape a plot based on a random set of cards. Therefore, assume that they are not random - the Fool's Journey. The most well known tarot deck and interpretation guide (Rider-Waite-Smith) were produced by members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (a late 19th century secret society focused on spiritual development). It is packed full of alchemical and astrological symbology, as is Elden Ring.
Who are the Greatest Fools of Elden Ring?
According to the cut-content Godrick speech, Morgott is a fool Omen. According to Sir Gideon Ofnir, Godrick is an old fool, and the player appears at first assessment to be an irredeemable fool. Morgott agrees that the Tarnished is a fool with foolish ambitions. Bloody Finger Hunter Yura thinks the player to be a fool for picking a fight with the dragon Agheel. D, Hunter of the Dead calls the player "another fool" for seeking places touched by death, seemingly self-aware of his own foolishness in seeking to weed out deathroot.
Smithing Master Hewg thinks that all Tarnished are fools:
"I see you've noticed the chains. Nothing special. I'm a prisoner, and these are my chains. I'm trapped by the Hold, undying, smithing for you fools. That's all there is to it."
From the DLC: Hornsent calls the player a mongrel blood and a fool (he places importance on blood purity in his own way, not unlike Ansbach), and Ansbach calls himself a fool for underestimating Thiollier (as mentioned before Ansbach believes in the "cards" and is thus bound to them, while Thiollier's themes are external to the Fool's Journey). If the player fails to defeat Bayle, Igon seems to have some dialogue that laments giving his finger and his soul to a fool.
The Stranded Soul at Fort Laidd is hiding from fools and brought the Fire Scorpion Charm with him in the hiding place. The charm contains hearts in a cyclical motif and nearby the fort there is a magma wyrm created by a human consuming the hearts of dragons. The Stranded Soul in Dragonbarrow near the Caelid Divine Tower complains of dryness and begs a fool dragon to surrender its heart to be feasted upon.
Boc wonders if he must be reborn - and seems to have misgivings about his fate after that rebirth - but calls himself a fool for not having the answer to this question. Castellan Jerren calls himself a foolish old warrior, wears armor that resembles a kind of Fool's motley, and calls blacksmith Iji an old fool.
Kenneth Haight has this to say of a fool: "I want you to take back my fort...A Knight commander from Stormveil took it. A fool, and plumb mad to boot. Simply obsessed with blood!" He also remarks on the Player's foolishness for refusing the offer to enter his service after clearing the fort.
The Dungeater mentions fools (and fate!) in his mad rambling:
"Hundreds will be reborn cursed, and they'll bear thousands of cursed children, who'll bear tens of thousands more. A few of those will be born just like me, and they'll kill, and defile, and bless in my stead! The rotten fools. My fate was the grandest, most brilliant of them all!"
One Finger Reader Crone speaks of a fool, but it is ambiguous who is the fool here, the “all-hearing”, or the “big pot”:
"Miquella's favour can be yours. Slaughter, slaughter, slaughter... The all-hearing slaughtered, but alas, it was for naught. But all you need do, is snatch it from the big pot....Pity the poor, poor fool!"
The Demi-Human Queen's Staff is "sneered at by fools in the academy". This does not necessarily mean that everyone at the academy is a fool, but applies to a certain faction. The spell "Glintstone Arc" declares that "fools travel in packs". Animals that may be grouped in packs: dogs, mules, rats, weasels, wolves. The singular mention of "weasel" in the text of the game is Gostoc addressing Godrick. The other animals are more common.
Seluvis speaks of the player's ability to make fools of others - naming Nepheli as being successfully fooled and Ranni as a prospective fool (doesn't work).
Diallos Hoslow is a good case study. He has seven lines of dialogue calling himself a fool - the most of any character. And the animal theming of House Hoslow is that of a ram - which has association with "beginnings" similar to "The Fool", as the warlike Aries is sometimes considered the start of the zodiac. At the least, this astrological zodiac association shows up fairly early in tarot with the 4th Arcana: The Emperor. Observe the storyline of Diallos as understood through the Fool's Journey:
10 Wheel of Fortune - Where we pick up with Diallos he has entered the service of the Round Table Hold. This is a turning point - destiny called him here as it called all Tarnished.
11 Justice - Diallos considers the cause and effect that led to the death of his servant and childhood friend Lanya (and perhaps his Lover, calling back to the 6th Arcana), and decides that he must confront the Recusants to seek Justice. This is also the first instance where Diallos applies the word "fool" to himself.
12 The Hanged Man - Rather than a direct confrontation Diallos finds himself with an opportunity to join the Recusants - originally accepting their offer for the purpose of infiltrating them. Volcano Manor also stands above the Prison Town where likely the Dungeater was hanged. In a reversal of fortune Diallos is soon swayed by the words of Lady Tanith. Interestingly, he describes the decision to pursue becoming a champion of Volcano Manor as thus:
"According to Lady Tanith... I've got the stuff of champions. And champions, ironic as it is, are oft forced walk a tainted a path. It hit me like a bolt from the blue... That my former thoughts were simple naiveté. Of course, my heart weeps for Lanya. That unfortunate incident was a cruel twist of fate indeed. But succumbing to the pain and sadness caused won't make me a champion, will it. Lanya knows this, I'm certain. Fate has laid hard roads for us both."
The "bolt from the blue" is a classic motif of "The Tower", which is 4 cards away from the Hanged Man. The reference to two roads is significant, it will come up again later.
13 Death - Diallos in his previous dialogue claims that "[these hands will] be darkened by grit, once I've set out on the path of champions". And then after the player has completed two missions for Volcano Manor he will say "I haven't achieved anything at all thus far. Even though I've dirtied my hands time and time again." It can be inferred that in the time between Diallos has set out on the path of champions - paralleling your own progress - and killed assassination targets for the Volcano Manor. In the process he experiences a death of his former principles by cutting away that which he believed unnecessary:
"I always resented these hands. Their pale complexion, a far cry from any warrior's."
14 Temperance / 15 The Devil - These also occur in the space before Diallos' next dialogue. Temperance is balance and stability - Diallos falling into the routine of Volcano Manor. The Devil is the ignorance of being in a situation from which one could easily free themselves, but do not even realize that they have been bound to a limited range of experience - Diallos failing to appreciate that there is much more that he could be living for other than dealing out death for a sight unseen benefactor.
16 The Tower - Diallos faces a crisis either when Rykard is slain (by the player who sneaks through the back routes to find Rykard) and the blasphemous core of the Volcano Manor is revealed, or when he is suddenly confronted with the final contract from Volcano manor: Juno Hoslow, Knight of Blood. This crisis shakes him free from the allure of being a Champion for the Volcano Manor.
"It's just as my noble brother says. I'm a complete fool. I can't believe I thought I could become a champion."
17 The Star / 18 The Moon - Diallos finds himself healed by the peace of Jarburg. He is hopeful that his soft hands will finally be good for something in becoming Potentate to the jars. However, Liurnia is also governed by the moon and this peace is an illusion, for the pots themselves are mad/lunatic/crackpot creations that look innocuous on the outside but are internally stuffed with gore.
19 The Sun - Diallos finally has his moment of greatness in defending Jarburg from attack. He is tragically enlightened as to what it means that "the tale of House Hoslow is told in blood" when he meets a bloody end.
20 Judgement - Diallos sheds his ego with and so his soul is freed from his flesh. That flesh will be reborn soon, as the contents of a Warrior Jar.
21 The World - Diallos's worldview was coloured by blood, and so becoming reduced to blood was his fate. A macabre twist on the end of the Fool's Journey, but it was what was called for by Diallos's character arc. And to emphasize that "blood" means more than simply a red liquid, the visual design of Hoslow's Petal Whip is fashioned in a way to evoke the visual of a DNA strand. A person's DNA is indeed something passed down through generations, as indicated in the item description.
Overall, there is significant textual support that the Tarnished in general and the player in specific is seen as a Fool. Dragon-hunters and dragons themselves are considered to be fools. And obsession with blood is a recurring trait of Fools.
Authorial Intent for the Tarot Sequence
As I mentioned previously, prophesies are an expression of the hand of the author on the story. Aside from a few references to "cards" and "fools", there is little enough evidence to be found looking solely within Elden Ring. Rather, the circumstantial evidence extends outside of the game, which is to say, from paying attention to the development history of FromSoftware.
There are coincidentally 22 years between Elden Ring and a FromSoft game called "Eternal Ring" released in 2000, which is long enough for a full cycle from Fool to Fool. One of the antagonists of Armored Core V (2012) pilots an AC unit called "Hanged Man" and with an emblem alluding to the iconography of the Hanged Man tarot card, which is the 12th Arcana. An added detail is that the hanged man is positioned in front of a guillotine - the looming spectre of death by beheading.
And there are a few hints that I've noticed in Dark Souls - such as Havel the Rock drawing inspiration from the Hierophant of 2005 (a priest in keeping with Havel's background as a bishop, and the Hierophant is associated with astrological Taurus matching his bovine leg armor and proximity to the Taurus demon), and of which 2005 was also the Year of the Wood Rooster (Havel being derived from Gallus meaning "rooster" and having a cock's comb on his helmet). Those familiar with Dark Souls may point out that this selectively ignores aspects of Havel's character such as how he carved his own armor out of stone, his hatred for Seath the Scaleless, and reputation as a Dragonslayer who uses a dragon's tooth as a club. Also there is a significant difference between a "Wood Rooster" and rooster carved of stone. But to that I would say: read to the end of the last section about parallels from other fantasy stories that are structured around a "Fool" character.
And if that was all, it could be easy to pick apart the overarching story by looking for the steps of tarot. But the pattern has been growing for 30 years and it is far more complex than that. It is - for example - not my intention today to explain the throughline of the astrological wheel as it applies to all of the Armored Core games in sequence. I do think it important to describe the truly convoluted decision to merge a second Fool's Journey to the first.
A century ending in 0 is one natural start for a Fool's Journey, but so is April 1st - April Fool's Day, which is known in Scotland as "The day of running the cuckoo". There has been one single game that FromSoft has released on an April 1st - Kuon in 2004. And like the 12th Arcana being incorporated in the year 2012, one of the puzzles of Kuon also references the year of its release - the zodiac puzzle is solved by "rooster first - monkey last" with 2004 being the year of the monkey. A cycle ends and is on the precipice of starting a new one, from the perspective that the Fool's story only truly begins upon meeting Arcana #1: the Magician. Also coincidently backtracking a bit to the previous cycle on this track will land "The Tower" arcana on the release year of "Shadow Tower".
Remember back with Diallos where he talked about two roads, and also referenced aesthetic of "The Tower", while playing out the spirit of "The Hanged Man"? Both align in 2016.
So now consider as a case study the significance of the year 2012. The Fool is the Hanged Man and suspended in a moment where the world has been turned upside down. An experience that seems too difficult to endure and the only choice is to let go. With the benefit of hindsight we know now that FromSoft did let go of something in 2012 - mecha games almost entirely disappeared from FromSoft development for 10 years after being a core part of their development for the previous 20 years. 9 of 29 (31%) from 1994-2003, 16 of 31 (52%) from 2004 to 2013, and 1 of 7* (14%) from 2014 to 2023 (*8% if counting DLC’s). The true last mecha game before AC6: Fires of Rubicon was Armored Core V: Verdict Day in 2013, with a name that speaks of finality and released in the year matching the 13th Arcana - Death. And as well as continuing the Fool's Journey the natural next step is to travel into the underworld - and so picks up Dark Souls. Hence the double-entendre subtitle of the Dark Souls Complete Edition directed to both the player and FromSoftware's long-running AC game franchise: Prepare to Die.
In the second Fool's Journey, 2012 is Arcana #8: Strength, following after Arcana #7: The Chariot. These tarot build off each other, as the Artorias of the Abyss expansion built off the base Dark Souls in the consecutive years of 2011 and 2012. Strength is associated with patience and tolerance and with the Fool having the courage to go on despite disillusionment, such as that which occurs in-universe upon learning that Artorias did not defeat Manus, Father of the Abyss, but instead fell to the Abyss. The Chariot is the Fool achieving the will-power to grasp control over the environment and achieve adulthood, as Dark Souls achieved the assertive success that was lacking in Demon's Souls.
Demon's Souls itself was released in 2009, the year of the 5th Arcana: Hierophant in the 2nd tarot journey. The Hierophant represents the beginning of the Fool's education in an organized belief system - identifying with a group and belonging. One might be tempted to think that this was the beginning of a belief in "souls", but that is too narrow focused - a "soul" is "thought" and exists whether it is believed in or not. Rather the contemplation of the nature of thought and personhood is more suited to the first Fool embodying Arcana #9: The Hermit, who looks inwards to search for answers. The Hierophant I find to be better expressed in the gaudy religious figure enthroned in the Tower of Latria - the old monk who brings belief in madness and eldritch entities, and is the first of the King in Yellow references scattered throughout the souls games and Elden Ring. Perhaps the Hermit-fool looks inside and sees a developing cuckoo of the Hierophant-fool, but has not the power to do anything to separate the conflicting parts. There is indeed an acknowledgement of two entities to consider as it is said in the opening titles: "On the first day, man was granted a soul, and with it, clarity. On the second day, upon Earth was planted an irrevocable poison; a soul-devouring Demon." So, there is the man and there is the demon.
Compare Demon's Souls Old Monk with the gilded tree growing behind his head with Shadow of the Erdtree's Midra who has the roots of a tree growing through his skull.
And while it seems unlikely that game development cycles could be contorted to some greater overarching narrative, consider this: how often have FromSoft games shipped "unfinished"? They always seem to set their goals a bit too high, resulting in outcomes like the abandoned 6th archstone in Demon's Souls or the under populated Izalith area in Dark Souls. They cut so much content that it ends up incorporated into massive DLC's like Bloodborne's Old Hunters DLC or Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree. Rather than delay games by a year or so until they can ship "complete", they have seemed more concerned with releasing as close to schedule as possible. The amount of content left unfinished simply does not matter if the overarching narrative was never intended to be completed in a single game. The game developer can't control for dataminers who will scrutinize any unused strings of code and invent in their heads a more "complete" game that could have been, regardless of whether these unused pieces were simply cut in the editing process because they didn't suit the artistic intent.
On the other hand, Elden Ring was delayed by a year from the initially planned release in 2021 and the result: not a single FromSoft game released in the year matching Arcana #21: The World. The final twist of the Fool's Journey was that it simply failed to manifest a world on time. My guess is that a substantial amount of cut content remained unused because it would have been appropriate for a 21-year story concluding in early 2021 (with 2 DLC to follow) and simply didn't suit the restructured 22-year story that released in early 2022. But there has been one last entry for the cuckoo-fool's journey. Shadow of the Erdtree released in 2024, and corresponds to Arcana #20: Judgement.
And notice that again it is specifically Ansbach - a follower of Mohg, Lord of Blood - who most closely applies to Miquella the tarot phrasing associated with the concept of "Judgement" in the Fool's Journey:
"Pure and radiant, he wields love to shrive clean the hearts of men. There is nothing more terrifying"
Ansbach is not wrong - he should be terrified. From the perspective of Miquella-as-god, the Lord of Blood and his followers are the false ego that needs to be overcome in order to manifest as a pure and radiant being. There is no negotiating - it is simply what must be done before moving on to the next step of creating a new World according to Arcana #21.
A person could get forever trapped in the circular logic loop of which happened first: Mohg taking Miquella to bathe in blood or Miquella using Mohg for his goal of becoming a god. Because from a mythic story-telling perspective it is a loop - Miquella is the Golden Dawn and Mohg is the twilight before nightfall - they are two sides of the same spinning coin. Mohg looks at the ruins of his life and is enchanted by the idea of living on through the life of the younger generation, continuing the pureblood dynasty at all costs even to inflicting pain on everyone involved. Miquella is the child who is traumatized by the abuses of the older generation and determined to regain bodily autonomy, yet blinded to the way that the trauma has corrupted his own dream for the future. In time, Miquella would inevitably become a new version of Mohg, unless some outside force intervenes to break the cycle.
The Fool's Journey in Fantasy Novels
As for George RR Martin as writer, I can't say that I know much about what he thinks of tarot. I don't think that the decision was in his hands - as an astute reader may have noticed, I am making a claim that FromSoft has been sculpting their library of games since before even Miyazaki was hired. But I suspect that GRRM is aware of the Fool's Journey, as he has expressed praise for Robin Hobb's Farseer and Tawney Man trilogies (and with an unsourced quote attached to Liveship Traders as well).
“Fantasy as it ought to be written…Robin Hobb's books are diamonds in a sea of zircons” - GRRM book quote for the Farseer trilogy
The influence of the whole Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb upon Elden Ring should be considered for a lot of reasons. Not only is "The Fool" one of the named characters and a prophet with meta-knowledge of what will happen in the story, but also the series has the following uncannily specific parallels with Elden Ring:
- A metaphor around smithing and Forging, paired with an alchemical metaphor about attaining the status of a Golden Lord before fading/dulling/tarnishing
- A quest to a snowy mountain that unexpectedly ends in being teleported to an ancient city and a place full of stone dragons
- Creatures that made giant cocoons for themselves and slept within them in a secluded city, only to have their cocoons cut open and soft infant forms removed before they could finish metamorphosis. Also the sleeping creatures can project themselves into dreams and there is a major plot point around soaking the cocoons with blood being a form of mental trauma.
- An elaborate homage to Moby Dick that works in themes of the generational cycle of violence (even featuring characters of similar name with Igon and Igrot).
- Protagonist has a close spiritual connection with wolf (counting for Elden Ring that the Raging Wolf set is often used to represent the player in promos).
- Time is a wheel - from Demon's Souls to Elden Ring these games literally embody one of the philosophies outlined in Realm of the Elderlings. The player can try again and again infinitely as long as it takes to correct all mistakes and play perfectly:
"All of history, a great wheel, turning inexorably. Just as seasons come and go, just as the moon moves endlessly through her cycle, so does time. The same wars are fought, the same plagues descend, the same folk, good or evil, rise to power. Humanity is trapped on that wheel, doomed endlessly to repeat the mistakes we have we have already made. Unless someone comes to change it. ...And when an entire cycle passes in which every prophet succeeds, time itself will finally stop. ...For time is the great enslaver of us all. Time that ages us, time that limits us. Think how often you have wished to have more time for something, or wished you could go back a day and do something differently. When humanity is freed of time, old wrongs can be corrected before they are done."
This is where I wanted to point again at Havel the Rock from Dark Souls. In RotE's Liveship Traders trilogy a precious material is discovered in an ancient city in a room called the "Crowned Rooster Chamber" for the sigil carved into the walls. This material is a silvery wood that is as hard as stone and is sawn into boards used to construct the titular "Liveships". Despite being marketed as such by the secretive traders, the "wood" is not wood. It is the cocoon of an infant dragon - a sea serpent - spun from sand and toxic/acidic saliva containing the memories of mature dragons. Harvesting this wood kills the squishy scaleless dragon inside the cocoon, who would normally absorb the material in the process of gaining adult form.
In-universe the source of the Liveship "wood" is a well kept secret for generations where outsiders have no idea that it is made from dragons. Here in the real world there is a certain amount of symmetry in imagining that a book series that Miyazaki or anyone from FromSoft has never even mentioned in interviews could be the inspiration for some of the best kept secrets in the entire library of FromSoftware games.
Final Notes
There are enough pieces of circumstantial evidence that I am confident that the Fool’s Journey is a central concept in Elden Ring. In a way it is the “Golden Order” - the process of taking an insignificant fool and forging them into a higher state of being through a spiritual journey heavily associated with hermeticism/alchemy. From one tarot perspective, Elden Ring is about the life and death and resurrection of Armored Core. Or from another perspective, Elden Ring is about the rise and fall of Dark Souls from the buried groundwork laid by King's Field and Shadow Tower.
However, at the same time the outcomes of the game also point out the pitfalls of the Fool’s Journey. Diallos follows the spirit of the journey...but what he prophesied for himself was a tale told in blood, and blood was how he ended. Diallos couldn't bring himself to confront and overcome the Knight of Blood - represented by his own brother - and dies in obscurity protecting crackpots.
The God form of Miquella in the DLC follows the aesthetic of the journey (banishing doubts and becoming an angelic “good” being, on a path to literally restart the cycle as the base Fool), but an outside observer cannot accept Miquella forcing his charm on others - even if the ultimate goal is to achieve peace - and most likely rejects him. The will of the God Miquella is detached from the reality of the game, where the Tarnished are avatars of real world people who are clueless as to what they are "supposed to do" to play their role in following the tarot fate. The Fool's Journey is just a story framework with nothing inherently intuitive about it - if all of the pop culture keywords are stripped away it becomes unrecognizable unless a person goes digging for it. So instead the player opposes Miquella on the principle that he is an obstacle who can be fought and is placed in the way of seeing end game content.
These two are examples of fools who looked inwards and backwards and reached conclusions that were self-destructive. They reached greater understanding of themselves, but at the same time became detached from the outside world (for Miquella - literally retreating into the dream realm of the cocoon) and have no idea how to apply that understanding towards constructively improving the civilizations around them.
Seluvis tries to make a fool of Ranni and cannot. Ranni’s quest is one that involves actively exploring the most inaccessible and secret places in the game. It's an externalized journey compared to an internalized one like Miquella who retreats into the surreal dreamscape of the cocoon. Ranni is strongly aligned with the intelligence sphere of influence compared to Miquella being aligned with faith. The entire Liurnia area is structured in ways to help a player notice that story is being told literally through landscape elements (in short: try mushroom vision, or climbing up churches). Escape from the wheel of the Fool's Journey is achieved from an active and ongoing effort to understand the systems that intertwine and form the ecosystem of a whole world.
#elden ring#shadow of the erdtree#tarot#media analysis#were the pie charts overkill?#31 years is a reasonable length for long form storytelling except that with video games the oldest entries are nigh inaccessible#the quality of information available relies upon the dedication to digital preservation#it has good synergy with the themes of Robin Hobb's books about how freedom of information and accurate records is a societal good
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seeing my dash full of good omens and one piece is glorious
#both fandoms i first got into when i was 13 and still thriving nearly 20 years later incredible god bless#i am that person that has 10 copies of good omens for some inexplicable reason#and keeps buying more editions of the book#as well as being *that* kind of sanji fan that has a thesis length character analysis on him ready to be unleashed at any given opportunity#i talked about him for a solid two hours today#embarrassing of me#purpleneutrino
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trying to make a list of books i'd recommend to fans of amc iwtv but i've gotten a little lost in the sauce making my own personal reading list and it's getting out of hand at this point
#i'm TRYING to keep it on track but i'm so so so good at making lists of books for myself to read#and not always. so good at following up on them#but i imagine people might appreciate that during the hiatus so i will try to keep it a reasonable length#lulu speaks#lulu reads#lulu watches interview with the vampire#see i have to read every book i recommend otherwise what's the point you know?#interview with the vampire
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2024 reads / storygraph
The Queens of Innis Lear
slow-moving political fantasy, retelling of the shakespeare tragedy king lear
set in a dying island kingdom, where the prophesy-obsessed king (having neglected the wild magic of the land) must pass on the crown to his three daughters
the elder two hate their father and have been planning their rule for years, and the youngest loves her father and does not want the crown- but does care for the magic of the land
but when the king makes an unforeseen decision, and other kingdoms and spies circle, vying for land and power of their own
earth magic, fate and duty, complicated sister relationships
#The Queens of Innis Lear#aroaessidhe 2024 reads#I thought this was pretty decent. It’s very long though. by the end i was starting to feel the length of it lmao#I don’t really have any familiarity with the original play so I was more approaching it just as any other fantasy book.#It definitely did feel very shakespearean in the plot and how the characters acted though!#I thought the love-and-hate relationship between the sisters was really interesting!#I liked ban in the beginning but by the end he was so annoying. Elia too a bit. didn’t really care about whatever was going on between them#I liked Aefa (the fool’s daughter….also just the inclusion of fools in medieval-esque fantasy)#I did pick this up because I’d heard there was an aroace character. She is one of the 7 or so POV characters#Definitely one of the most interesting characters to me; definitely also plays into some stereotypes.#(cold; brutal; a ‘heart of iron’ - there are other reasons for this; and she’s certainly not a one-dimensional character#(also. i want this kind of aroace character sometimes) but still something to note.#Like I did really like her but also wouldn't necessarily rec people read this for the aroace character (partly just bc of the large cast)#That plus with the fact that she’s described as the darkest skinned (often in tandem with those other descriptors; being brutal; masculine)#is.....hm. a bit uneasy#I’m not sure how well the story handled the Black characters in general tbh but i can’t really make a judgement on that i guess#(I’m hesitant to read books by white authors with Black/biracial MCs regardless; wasn’t aware of this before I started it)#there are couple other bi characters but it’s not SUPER queer otherwise.
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Probably the biggest (though a bit dubious) advantage of reading Discworld books for the first time at 26 is that you understand every single double entendre
If I were British I would've probably also understood every single sociopolitical reference cause now I feel I've missed a few
#discworld#well. every single that isn't lost in the translation I'm reading#like e.g calling Cutwell Keli's chamberlain which is. veeeeeeeeeeeeery vague especially since there isn't any “chamber” in the Russian word#the translations I'm reading tend to lose A LOT actually. there isn't a day when I'm not complaining to Shio that some joke was lost#desperately waiting for the editions with Graf's covers#I compared the printed version of Hogfather to my ebook of Hogfather and the former is SO much better it's insane#with a C1 I probably could've just read the originals but for an unknown and very sad reason#I find it incredibly hard to focus on Pratchett's original text#but then again the only book I checked this on was Good Omens so it might have been Gaiman's influence#tags 10x the length of post
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Fun Rebels tag drinking game: Take a shot for every Thrawn simp wringing their hands about the show possibly portraying their favorite asshole fascist as a bad guy, gasp shock and horrors!
#thrawn can have sympathetic motivations a likable characterization and understandable motives and STILL be an unredeemable villain guys#having good reasons for doing the terrible things does not in fact justify or absolve you of doing said terrible things#you cannot work for the empire for any length of time and not eventually become complicit in their atrocities#at which point if you are *actually* a Good Person... you leave#not stick around hoping to get yourself into a better position of power so that you can control the galaxy *better* than the other guys#dunking on the blue bastard#taking out the rebels tag trash#and zahn is on thin ice for his characterization of thrawn in the new books fyi
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Im SORRY… my katniss and my peeta
#hunger games#katniss everdeen#peeta mellark#sorryyyyyyy first book katniss and peeta in 12 and in the capitol 🙂🧡#this is how they look in my miiiiind#PEETA WOULDNT SHAVE HIS UGLY LITTLE MUSTACHE#aaaaaand he would have the most awesome bad haircut hes sooo cute to me#ALSO their matching outfits in the capitol 🧡🧡🧡#important that you know in my mind peeta is wearing a white tshirt and katniss has a dark green long sleeve shirt it’s important#also so important to me that they had to cut peetas hair in my mind hed be soooo sad about it but literally no big deal#and i just thiiiink that after the war peeta would grow his hair out and katniss would have hers short like maximum shoulder length#shed brush her hair and make peeta cut it straight across#to me katniss has thick slightly wavy hair but she wiuld BRUSH IT so its like straight but frizzy (important to me for no reason)#sorry im like actually insane 🙂🧡🧡🧡
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Partaking in Dracula Daily this year, very excited.
It does make me wonder, though. Has anyone ever though to do this with other epistolary novels? I know there aren't exactly a ton that are public domain like Dracula, but I think it would be an interesting way to consume the few that do exist, like Pamela or Clarissa by Samuel Richardson.
#dracula daily#idk man it just sounds fun to do this with other books too#also yes im aware of the length of Clarissa#thats part of the reason I think this would be an interesting way to read that book
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every so often i recall that will readings, a now antiquated practice, has been so normalized by media using it as a plot device that people think that's what happens. that it's real. it's not real okay? ppl do not sit down and read a 30+ page technical legal document out loud. it is a fun thing hollywood and books do for the drama and the narrative of it all
#currently#did anyone read that nancy drew book where there's a Will hidden in a clock#very fun#anyway iirc this practice came about bc people were illiterate.#i promise this isn't me being nitpicky for no reason lol i just think it's fun trivia#also honestly grieving and probate and dealing with loss is so hard that i think we could stand to make the process more transparent#every single tv show about law lies about how it works. hope that helps. 💜#so does maggie stiefvater's the raven cycle but we've already discussed that at length#this is not legal advice#i'm not a lawyer!!!!!! i just work here
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wish people didn't equate protagonist to hero/good guy 90% of the time. not every leading character is going to be a good person but you're following them because they're interesting and seeing their story unfold and how they affect people is interesting. this doesn't exclude characters who have "good intentions" or do good things either
#like walter white? not really a good guy#wu zetian? shes pissed for understandable reasons but the book never really tries to paint her as a good person for the things she does#to her what she does is *justified* even if the lengths are extreme#also like SHES the narrator Zetian isnt going to turn to the camera after crushing someone in her mech and say “this is a bad thing to do”#the book follows her pov and how she views things is a result of how she's experienced the world and the people in it#anyway i read some reviews of Iron Widow that took “its man hating radical liberalism” from it
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nonfiction books particularly are SO expensive even secondhand 😭😭 luckily u can get around all of this by very easily finding all books online* for FREE or at ur local library for FREE
#*again this is a thing however where i need to get a job and save up for a computer so i can actually read the pdfs i have saved#bc reading Whole Books on a phone well ive done it a few times it isnt great i fear#reading articles or reasonably lengthed essays is fine. whole books? different story
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