Soulslike - Discussion, News, Memes

Alright I definitely disagree with a lot of this. I do think her ending is one of the better ones and she's a cool character, but:

her ending is the only one that leaves the lands between to their own devices, separate from the will of the outer gods, and the greater will.

Outer Gods do not need access to the Elden Ring to influence the world. If they did, we wouldn't have a Lake of Rot, the Three Fingers, or the fire giant's extra face to deal with. Was Marika just... letting them do all that before? Even when she actively waged a genocidal war to get rid of the Flame of Ruin?

We also do not actually know anything about the Dark Moon either; it might just straight up be another conscious cosmic entity like the Greater Will. It's certainly talked about in largely the same way the few times it is mentioned. Ranni describes it as wise, so she seems to consider it conscious

removing death itself to feed its own cycle.

Marika did that, not the Greater Will. It doesn't seem to come smite us from above if we pick Fia's ending, even.

cementing the will of an invading outer god that literally wiped all other religions and opposing loyal forces in the lands between off the face of the map (and underground)

Again, Marika's actions, not the GW's. This is like blaming the Christian God for the Crusades instead of the humans that called for and carried out the Crusades. Dog pope even repeatedly makes the point that the order wasn't always like this and can accommodate basically anything. We also know that the GW can tolerate good relations with other faiths because it specifically did with the Carians in the past, and it was Marika that put an end to it.

rannis ending literally returns the lands between to their own devices, at least for a time

But leaves the Elden Ring in the hands of someone that already has a track record of screwing over the entire world for her own ends and running off without even trying to fix any of it. Not to mention that we absolutely know for a fact that space, in this setting, is full of scary monsters that can and will interrupt this voyage

its the only ending that reverses the will of the outer gods and bans their will

The only gods Ranni removes from the Lands Between are Marika, by virtue of having you kill her and taking the Elden Ring from her, and then herself. And I suppose diminishing the Greater Will, but replacing it with her preferred counterpart. She never mentions the Outer Gods at all.

Ranni takes the Elden Ring for herself, leaves, and promises not to come back to mess with anything. That's all. Goldmask's rune puts a password preventing admin access to the Elden Ring so that Marika's successors (starting with you) can't mess with it on a whim like she did. There's no indication at all that his ending enforces any of the shit Marika did, he's trying to make sure that nobody that comes after Marika can do what she did (with the Elden Ring; he obviously cannot prevent all the horrors she inflicted in her capacity as a queen giving orders like a regular queen. The only ending that addresses that sort of problem is the one that sets fire to everything until there is nobody left to commit atrocities or have atrocities committed against them)

To be clear I don't, like... hate Ranni or anything. She's a really interesting character. Part of that character is that she has no interest whatsoever in saving the world; her whole plan from day one was fucking off so she can be left alone, leaving things like Deathblight and the Rot completely unaddressed and also taking away one of the other most powerful entities who might have worked against those. But she isn't making anything worse and her plan does mitigate the risks of someone like Shabriri getting the Ring, so by FromSoft standards that's actually alright

Agree with everything :)