Okay, I like this generally, but I want to go through the document and outline some issues:
The Greater Will formed the world out of the fractured 'One Great' and embodies the Order which defines this fractured World, akin to a benevolent Demiurge fashioning existence with his Tools.
The Greater Will itself does not embody Order of the universe, the Elden Ring does. It DESIRES order, and that's why it sent down the Elden Beast to become the Elden Ring, but it isn't the concept itself. This is just a semantics thing and I wanted to specify that.
| "In terms of conceptual differences, whereas the One Ring is something that actually physically exists and fits on your hand, the Elden Ring is more of an abstraction. It’s a representation of something metaphysical. So there’s not a direct link between Elden Ring and inspiration from the One Ring and Tolkien’s works." | „ |
Here we see the Elden Ring described as something explicitly non physical and that it's an 'Abstraction' and a representation of something 'Metaphysical'.
While the Elden Ring does not physically exist like the one ring, it is something that can be interacted with as if it is physical. The runes themselves aren't metaphysical and non-existent, but they represent and control metaphysical concepts (basically a conduit to effect concepts). This is actually a good feat for NPI in the series, since characters are able to physically interact with runes, even though they aren't actual objects.
These are the fundamental aspects of reality that define order, regression is the pull of 'meaning' and causality defines the pull between these meanings therefore Order also defines time in the way that it links events.
I think its important to emphasize here that these laws are aspects of the Golden Order, and not order in its entirety (although since they are still an aspect of the Elden Ring I think its okay to still use them). The thing I'm against here though is the law of causality's specific relation to time. Law of Regression and Causality aren't so as much discussing the flow of time, as they are the flow of things in the Universe. Similar to our concepts of entropy, all things seek to go into a chaotic, cohesive state like the one great. Causality goes against this though, since it is the pull BETWEEN things that cause them to move apart. It creates meaning between concepts, halting regression back into the one great. They both exist within the Golden Order and are fundamentals of it, because they are complementary functions.
Overall, I still think its pretty obvious that the Elden Ring is Low 2-C, since there's solid evidence to show that it has control of all metaphysical concepts within the world, I just think there needs to be better clarification on why this is the case (and more specifically the Ring's connection to time beyond causality).
| "Now cometh the age of the stars. A thousand year voyage under the wisdom of the Moon. Here beginneth the chill night that encompasses all, reaching the great beyond" | |
This concept isn't really elaborated on till the DLC (keep note of the spiral galaxies marked)
I know this has been talked about to death, but Ranni's ending is horribly mistranslated. Not in a way that completely takes away from this statement, but in a way where it makes it a bit harder to explain. This is the accurate translation of her ending dialogue and post-game dialogue.
私は誓おう すべての生命と、すべての魂に
“I shall swear to all lives and souls”
これよりは星の世紀
“From hereon is the Age of Stars”
月の理、千年の旅
“The laws of the moon, a thousand year journey”
すべてよ、冷たい夜、はるか遠くに思うがよい
“To all, you may think of the chill night as infinitely far away”
恐れを、迷いを、孤独を そして暗きに行く路を さあ、行こうか
“And now, let us go on our path of fear, doubt, and loneliness, into darkness”
私の律について
“About my order”
私の律は、黄金ではない。星と月、冷たい夜の律だ
“My order will not be of gold, but of the stars and moon, and chill night.”
…私はそれを、この地から遠ざけたいのだ
“…I want to keep it far away from this land.”
生命と魂が、律と共にあるとしても、それは遥かに遠くにあればよい
“…Even if life and souls are one with the order, it (the order) could be kept far away.”
確かに見ることも、感じることも、信じることも、触れることも
…すべて、できない方がよい
“If it was not possible to clearly see, feel, believe in, or touch the order… That would be better.”
だから私は、律と共に、この地を棄てる
“That is why I will leave this place, along with the order.”
Here, we can see that instead of her order extending out into this "great beyond", instead she is taking it out of the lands between infinitely far way. If we just had the ending dialogue, this would pretty safely disprove that the order extends beyond the lands between. However, in Ranni's post-game dialogue we get more context. She tells us that while life and souls are still a part of the Order, it is kept far enough away that they do not believe in it, removing the suffering it causes people. Basically, by having order itself in the lands between, life fixates on it and wishes to change it. However with it out in the cosmos, souls no longer associate it and will no longer seek to change it. Note though, this isn't a separate place, but just somewhere very far away
From these two item descriptions, we can discern that the 'Lightless Abyss' is the 'Great Beyond' and that it's where the Greater Will resides and that this abyss is the 'Macrocosm' to the Microcosm of 'The World'.
For the sake of simplicity, I'll be calling the Macrocosm the Lightless Abyss, since that's what its actually called in game. Overall though, while I do like this connection, I don't think the Microcosm itself is the universe itself or anything beyond the orb we see in the staff or the spell. From what we learn about it, the Microcosm is a tool Metyr used to communicate with the greater will in its lightless abyss. Based on its name and connection to the abyss, it can be assumed then that the Microcosm itself is just a connecting point to the abyss. TL;DR, you have the lightless abyss, a separate place from our universe, and the Microcosm is a small version of it they use to communicate with the Greater Will.
During Rani's ending when we see the Great Beyond, we see the Microcosm from the perspective of the Macrocosm and now instead of a Golden Ring like the Fleeting Microcosm has, it is now encompassed by the Moon which signifies that the Order of the World is no longer configurable by anyone as she has become it's vessel and moved The Elden Ring and thus Order to the Great Beyond.
Okay I'm just going to tackle this and the previous bits about the Staff of the All-Knowing and Fleeting Microcosm itself at once. Connecting Ranni's ending to the Microcosm itself I feel is inherently flawed, not only because of their lack of direct connection, but because of the differences between the infinite space Ranni takes the Elden Ring and the lightless abyss the Greater Will resides in. Like I said, in the accurate translation of Ranni's ending, there is no indication that the Elden Ring has left the universe/cosmos (which might I mention I believe is the heavens talked about in the Staff of the All Knowing). The Microcosm however is specifically a small aspect, or as the fleeting microcosm states, a simulacra of the lightless abyss where the greater will resides. In summary, the lightless abyss and world/heavens are two separate dimensions. Not only is there that difference, but the visual of the Moon in Ranni's ending is even different from the Microcosm. The Moon we see is pulling things in, with order being taken far away by the moon and stars, while Microcosm pulses with golden waves outwards, akin to the greater will communicating out of it.
This implies that invasions and summoning works in much the same way Dark Souls does in that each Tarnished (player character specifically) resides in their own world, and that coop/invasions are Tarnished projecting their souls into other worlds as a 'phantom'
I've talked about this at length before on how I don't think summoning is accurate in lore, but I have a few things I want to mention here. Firstly, Igon says nothing about him residing in another world. All of his dialogue discusses how his soul can be summoned with his finger, nothing about him being in another world and coming to ours. Beyond this, it would make absolutely no sense for him to come to our world anyway. Why would his soul be residing on a mountain in OUR world? Why is it that he needs to defeat OUR Bayle. Realistically, he would ask for our help fighting Bayle in HIS world rather than our own. Finally, the case of Igon is very specific, since we explicitly not summoning him specifically. We are given a special finger to summon his soul, since his body has been crippled and he can no longer fight.
Beyond just Igon, there are even other cases where it makes no sense for us to be summoning characters from other worlds. This is even something Dark Souls actively explains, since Solaire's dialogue explains that the "other worlds" we are summoning people from aren't unique universe, but from the same world as ours just at a different point in time. This is because the fading of the first flame has caused time to stagnate, leading to different locations and people layering together, bringing people from different ages to one point. In Elden Ring however, we don't get an explanation like this. Instead, we get multiple situations where summoned people are people we've met in our universe at our point in time (such as Yura, the Bloody Fingers, and Melina).
The World/The Microcosm: Low 2-C (The Microcosm is defined by configuration of the Elden Ring which is shown to be the fundamental truth of the Laws of the World, defining all of time and space which was created by a cosmological expansion akin to a big bang, possesing similar gravity to our own reality)
The Lightless Abyss, The Great Beyond/The Macrocosm: 2-C to possibly 2-B (The Abyss which encompases the Universe entirely, described as a 'Macrocosm' compared to the physical area defined by the configuration of the Elden Ring. Said to be where the Greater Will resides who fashioned the all worlds of which there are an unknown amount)
In this case, only the World and the Elden Ring are Low 2-C, with the Microcosm being an representation of the lightless abyss, and directly lacks scaling. Since I've also debunked in game scaling of a larger multiverse, this would make the overall cosmology 2-C, since it contains our universe and the lightless abyss where the greater willr resides.
It doesn't literally need to say it does, it defines the order which gives meaning to things like time and space. It is much more abstract and fundamental then this, representing the truth or the Essence of the world. Also, it is able to physically remove spaces like the Land of Shadow from reality making them inaccessible entirely.
While I do agree with this, we do not know if the Land of Shadow was removed from the Lands Between by the Elden Ring. We know it was removed somehow, but we don't know if this was some kind of spell, if Marika did it, if the Elden Ring did it, etc.
Some aspect of us burning the Erdtree transports us to Farum Azula which is a space separated by a 'Storm Beyond Time'
Farum Azula itself is not beyond time, only the storm in the middle (the big tornado we travel into to fight Placcidusax does. This storm isn't com
The reason why you need to go the storm beyond time to cleanse the influence of the Frenzied Flame is because you're now outside of the effects of the Elden Ring and thus the Outer Gods.
I guess this makes sense, but it sounds like you are nerfing the Elden Ring by saying that the Needle Works because we are outside of the effects of the Elden Ring do not go beyond time. I think you should focus more on how being beyond time effects the outer gods rather than the Elden Ring itself.
Holy hell I wrote WAAAAAAAY more than I was expecting. I hope this helps to clarify things by the way. Again, I don't think Low 2-C ER isn't wrong, but some of the explanations you provided need tweaking.
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