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Let a new epoch begin. An epoch glistening with life. Brandish the Elden Ring, for the Age of the Erdtree! - Queen Marika the Eternal — as quoted by Melina
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Queen Marika the Eternal is the reigning divine sovereign of the Lands Between, and a vessel for the Elden Ring. Her offspring possess demigod status and are bearers of the Great Runes.
Overview[]
Early Life[]
Marika at the Gate of Divinity
Marika was a Numen hailing from a Shaman Village somewhere in the Hinterland.[1] Her people were persecuted by the hornsent for their perceived impurities.[2] The hornsent deified the Crucible,[3] the primordial blending of all life,[4] and sought to emulate its divinity by butchering and placing those without its blessings into ritual jars.[5] They prized shaman flesh as an emulsifier for its affinity to meld harmoniously with that of others.[6]
Marika was at some point named an Empyrean by the Two Fingers and gifted a Shadowbound Beast: her half-brother Maliketh. Unbeknownst to her, her guiding Fingers had long since been broken.[7] She later ascended to godhood at the Gate of Divinity atop the tower of Enir-Ilim,[8] becoming the vessel for the Elden Ring.[9] This affair led to the birth of the Erdtree and Scadutree,[10][11] and was considered a betrayal by the Hornsent.
Before or after this event, Marika came into conflict with another Empyrean known as the Gloam-Eyed Queen. After emerging victorious, and desiring a world free of Destined Death, she removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring,[12] using Maliketh as a vessel to lock it away,[13] thus establishing the Golden Order.[14][15]
Prior to or after her ascension, Marika took a warrior with a ceaseless lust for battle as her consort. In vowing to conduct himself as a Lord,[16] Godfrey took the spirit of the beast regent Serosh upon his back.
Eventually, Marika returned to the abandoned Shaman Village for the last time. After cutting off a braid of her hair and leaving it as an offering to the Grandmother, she bathed her home in the healing light of gold and would never return.[1]
Age of the Erdtree[]
In the early days, everything was in opposition to the Erdtree.[17] With Godfrey’s aid,[18] Marika waged war against the Fire Giants atop the frigid northern mountains, whose Flame of Ruin was capable of burning the Erdtree.[19] Ultimately victorious, the Fell God of the Fire Giants was believed to have been slain by Marika.[20] Upon learning that the Flame of Ruin would never die, however, she cursed the last of the giants to tend to it for eternity.[21]
Marika and Godfrey would rule together and have at least three children: Godwyn the Golden and the twins Morgott and Mohg. The twins were both born as accursed Omen and were hidden in the depths below the capital. Even so, Godfrey and his Golden Lineage would be counted as the first of the demigods.[22]
(Liurnian Wars goes here)
With her rule secure, Marika announced her intention to search the depths of the Golden Order, declaring the early days of blind belief a thing long past.[23] When Godfrey's last foe fell it was said the hue of his eyes had faded.[24] Marika banished him and his kinfolk from the Lands Between, robbing them of their grace,[25] thus creating the first Tarnished, all in the hope that they would grow stronger by waging war in lands outside her rule, dying, and then eventually being revived with their guidance of grace returned.[26]
Marika sent her son Messmer away on a crusade into the lands of the Hornsent. Despite her precautions, her fear of the Abyssal Serpent sealed within him led her to trap him within the Realm of Shadow, where he would wage war to exterminate the Hornsent and devastate their lands. No matter how many of her enemies burned in his flame, however, Mesmer received no sign from Marika to end his crusade, and so resentfully cursed his mother for abandoning him. To hide away these actions and the true nature of her godhood, Marika hid the Realm of Shadow behind a magical veil to obscure it from public knowledge.
After Godfrey's banishment from the Lands Between, Marika took Radagon as second husband and King Consort, elevating him to become the second Elden Lord.[27] Radagon already had three children with Queen Rennala of the Carian Royal Family, and after his union with Marika, she would raise her new step-children, Radahn, Rykard and Ranni, to demigod status.[28]
Marika and Radagon would go on to have two more children of their own, the twins Malenia and Miquella,[29] who like Marika herself and Radagon's daughter Ranni, were Empyreans,[30] and were thus potential successors to Marika. However, Radagon and Marika were in truth the same. Radagon was described as Marika's male "other self".[31] Thus the twins were the children of a single god, and they were both born afflicted: Malenia with rotting sickness and Miquella with eternal childhood.[32]
Night of Black Knives[]
On the Night of Black Knives, a fragment of the Rune of Death was stolen from Maliketh.[33] For a long time it was not known who was behind the plot,[34] but it is finally revealed it was in fact Ranni who stole the fragment of the rune to forge godslaying black knives through a fearsome rite.[35]
The Black Knife Assassins, Numen women purported to have close ties to Marika herself,[36] used these knives to slay Godwyn the Golden, the first recorded death of a demigod in all history.[37] Queen Marika is said to have been driven to the brink by this event,[38] and some time later she shattered the Elden Ring using her hammer.[39] She had already instructed her demigod children to fight for the positions of Elden Lord and that of godhood.[40]
The Shattering[]
Marika shattered the Elden Ring
Fragments of the ring splintered into Great Runes and spread across the Lands Between, starting a conflict between her demigod children. War after war was fought, but there was no victor.[41] For her part, Marika would be imprisoned inside the Erdtree,[42] possibly by the Elden Beast or the Greater Will itself.[43]
True to her promise to Godfrey and his warriors, grace was restored to the banished Tarnished.[44] They would rise from their graves, and journey to the Lands Between to once again brandish the Elden Ring. The Tarnished formed the Roundtable Hold, where they worked to realize the goal given to them by Marika. They would be served by a Misbegotten blacksmith named Hewg, whom Marika herself had charged with smithing a "god-slaying weapon" before his imprisonment in the Hold.[45]
Endings[]
Marika shattered and imprisoned inside the Erdtree
Eventually, a Tarnished champion manages to fight their way into the Erdtree, where the shattered Marika lay imprisoned. Marika is suddenly released from her bonds, with Radagon asserting control of their shared body and confronting the Tarnished. After defeating Radagon and the Elden Beast itself, the Tarnished may choose what to do with the fractured body of Marika. Marika's head is restored to her frame if the Elden Ring is mended, either by itself or with a Mending Rune. If Ranni is summoned, she picks up Marika's head gently, peacefully dissipating along with the rest of her body. If the Tarnished is the Lord of Frenzied Flame, Marika's head breaks apart and crumbles into ash.
By choosing to go down the Elden Lord path, whether the regular one or using any of the three Mending Runes to fix the Elden Ring within Marika, the Tarnished champion ushers in a new age. They become the third Elden Lord and effectively Marika's new consort in every one of them,[46] except in the Age of Stars (where they become consort to Ranni) and in the Lord of Frenzied Flame (where they make the whole world burn). However, Queen Marika remains shattered and unresponsive, with only the Elden Ring itself shining brightly within her body.
Echoes of Marika[]
In certain sites of Grace, Melina can offer to share Marika's own words with the The Tarnished. These are compiled here.
| English Dialogue |
| Echoes of Marika (Third Church of Marika) |
|---|
| My Lord, and thy warriors. I divest each of thee of thy grace. |
| With thine eyes dimmed, ye will be driven from the Lands Between. |
| Ye will wage war in a land afar, where ye will live, and die. |
| Echoes of Marika (Church of Pilgrimage) |
| Then, after thy death, I will give back what I once claimed. |
| Return to the Lands Between, wage war, and brandish the Elden Ring. |
| Grow strong in the face of death. Warriors of my lord. |
| Lord Godfrey. |
| Echoes of Marika (Grand Lift of Dectus) |
| The Erdtree governs all. The choice is thine. |
| Become one with the Order. Or divest thyself of it. |
| To wallow at the fringes; a powerless upstart. |
| Echoes of Marika (Capital Outskirts) |
| Hear me, Demigods. My children beloved. |
| Make of thyselves that which ye desire. Be it a Lord. |
| Be it a God. |
| But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken. |
| Amounting only to sacrifices... |
| Echoes of Marika (Queen's Bedchamber) |
| O Radagon, leal hound of the Golden Order. |
| Thou'rt yet to become me. Thou'rt yet to become a god. |
| Let us be shattered, both. Mine other self. |
| Echoes of Marika (Minor Erdtree Church) |
| I declare mine intent, to search the depths of the Golden Order. |
| Through understanding of the proper way, our faith, our grace, is increased. |
| Those blissful early days of blind belief are long past. |
| My comrades; why must ye falter? |
| Echoes of Marika (First Church of Marika) |
| Hark, brave warriors. Hark, my lord Godfrey. We commend your deeds. |
| Guidance hath delivered ye through each ordeal, to the place ye stand. |
| Put the Giants to the sword, and confine the flame atop the mount. |
| Let a new epoch begin. An epoch glistening with life. |
| Brandish the Elden Ring, for the Age of the Erdtree! |
| Japanese Dialogue |
| Echoes of Marika (Third Church of Marika) |
|---|
| …分かった。マリカの言霊を、そのまま伝える |
| 我が王よ、王の戦士たちよ。お前たちから、祝福を奪う |
| そして、その瞳が色褪せたとき、狭間の地を追放する |
| 外に戦を求め、生き、そして死ぬがよい |
| …どう？巫女様の導き、少しでもその代わりになればよいのだけど |
| Echoes of Marika (Church of Pilgrimage) |
| そして、お前たちが死した後、いつか奪ったものを返そう |
| 狭間の地に戻り、戦い、赴くままにエルデンリングを掲げるがよい |
| Echoes of Marika (Grand Lift of Dectus) |
| 黄金樹は、すべてを律する。選ぶがよい |
| 我らの律の一部となるか？それとも律の外にあり… |
| 何の力も持たぬ、辺境の傍流となるか |
| Note: She is asking them to choose to exist within the Order or outside of it. There is no implication of them already having Grace, as there is in English. |
| Echoes of Marika (Capital Outskirts) |
| デミゴッド、我が愛し子たちよ |
| お前たちはもう、何者にもなれる。王であれ、神であれ |
| そして、何者にもなれぬ時、お前たちは見棄てられる |
| …そして贄となるのだ |
| Echoes of Marika (Queen's Bedchamber) |
| おお、ラダゴン、黄金律の犬よ |
| お前はまだ、私ではない。まだ、神ではない |
| さあ、共に砕けようぞ！我が半身よ！ |
| Note: 我が半身よ means "My half-body." |
| Echoes of Marika (Minor Erdtree Church) |
| 黄金律の探究を、ここに宣言する |
| あるべき正しさを知ることが、我らの信仰を、祝福を強くする |
| 幸せな幼き日々、盲信の時代は終わる |
| 同志よ、何の躊躇が必要だろうか！ |
| Echoes of Marika (First Church of Marika) |
| 戦士たちよ。我が王、ゴッドフレイよ |
| 導きに従い、よくここまで戦ってくれた |
| あの頂に、巨人たちを打ち滅ぼし、火を封じよう |
| そして、はじめようじゃないか。輝ける生命の時代を |
| エルデンリングを掲げ、我ら黄金樹の時代を！ |
Notes[]
- Marika's Rune can be seen in Marika's Scarseal, Marika's Soreseal, and Messmer's implanted right eye. It resembles the crowning arc of the Elden Ring and her body crucified inside the Erdtree.
- When Marika's body changes into Radagon, her dress becomes his skirt.
- It is heavily implied that the Elden Beast was the being who imprisoned Marika inside the Erdtree based on one of its attacks where it attempts to grab the player and lift them in the air to crucify and pierce them with a barrage of golden spears, similar to how Marika is seen in the cutscene before the final boss battle.
- It is probable, but never explicitly confirmed in-game, that Melina is also a child of Marika. Her internal name in the game files is "MaricaOfDaughter", she refers to her "mother inside the Erdtree", and most of the information about the Queen is gleaned from dialogue where Melina repeats Marika's own words at specific sites of grace.
Trivia[]
- Marika is reminiscent of the alchemical concept of the White Queen. The White Queen is often depicted as one half of the Rebis (the other half being the Red King, referenced with Radagon), a single being possessing both male and female qualities, also sometimes referred to as the divine hermaphrodite. It is said that the Rebis hailed from one being that is separated into a male and female half until it is unified once again to form a transcendental being empowered by a dragon (corresponding to the Elden Beast).
Gallery[]
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References[]
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