Elden Ring Lore | The Primeval Current and the Graven Witch

What is the Primeval Current? How does Glintstone connect to the Stars? Why is Sellen called the Graven Witch? What is fate?

These are all questions that we explore and will be explained in-depth, in this Elden Ring Lore video, as we examine item description, dialogue, and environmental storytelling.

Chapters:

Intro - 0:00
Fate and Astrology - 1:53
Seluvis and Puppets - 12:54
Glintstone Sorcery - 20:05
The Vitality of the Stars - 27:21
The Primeval Sorcerers - 30:28
The Graven Witch - 35:35
What is the Primeval Current? - 45:35

This is an extremely expansive video that not only looks at Sellen the Graven Witch but also examines the following subjects: The Primeval Current, Azur, Lusat, Glintstone, Graven-Schools, Fate, Astrology, Stars, Astel and more.

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Soundtrack is Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Sekiro and Elden Ring

I do not own the rights to Elden Ring, all rights to Fromsoftware

#eldenring #sellen #glintstone

[zellthatsme]

If you neglect to tell Sellen about the location of Lusat, her quest continues to Raya Lucaria and she will continue to stay in the middle of the room untransformed, asking you for the location of Lusat. It's only when you tell her, that she finally transforms. For me this cements the fact that she indeed transformed herself into a graven mass with Azur and Lusat's bodies

[ianrussell]

Marika's crucifixion stake being an amber starlight shard is just too perfect, well thought of you!

[ricardopalma]

10:06 It's worth noting that you cannot open the chest containing the Fingerslayer Blade until you have talked to Ranni in her rise and entered into her service. Trying to do so displays a message saying: "You are not destined to open this." Even though Ranni's fate has been released and Nokron made accessible, the fact that you are not in her service means that Fate still blocks you. As a Tarnished, we have no Fate, as discussed in the video, but we are allowed to at least hold the Fingerslayer Blade while in her service. It's interesting to see that Fate has strict rules and can be worked around in this way.

[theonetrueqstudios]

Fun idea a friend told me; the idea that Seluvis was ALWAYS a puppet, from the moment we meet him, controlled by Pidia. Seluvis enters his "Puppet Position" at the same time that Pidia's soldier puppets kill him. Pidia has the puppet reward that is otherwise given to us if we give Nepheli the puppet potion. Seluvis also seems to not understand the difference between two different people, as he acts as though Dung Eater is Nepheli when he is given the potion instead, prehaps a sign that he is a mere puppet, controlled by Pidia? Just an idea.

[wyattmorelock]

People who don't understand why Fromsoftwares implicit story telling is good, also don't understand we enjoy watching hours upon hours of lore videos! Not only do these videos have a lot more information and hit way harder than a 1 minute cutscene, but the community involvement is amazing! Thanks for doing what you do Smough!

[NohrScum]

I get the impression that the tonic didn't work on Ranni because she has no actual body to intoxicate.
Makes it really funny that Selivus would overlook such an obvious detail

[draegur]

Sad, I really liked Sellen. Her "farewell" and encouragement about you becoming an Elden Lord was pretty unique. Hopefully the graven school is some sort of cocoon-like metamorphosis form, like Astel has, and with time they would find what they wanted, even if it seems unlikely.

[duquette]

41:48 might be worth noting that Rennala never left that room. When Sellen is there, Rennala can be found right behind one of bookshelves. I thought that was kinda neat.

[xjwarrior]

Jerren's relationship with the Carian royal family is further elaborated him if you talk to him before the festival is active, but only after you join Ranni's group. He mentions that beating Radahn can unlock Ranni's fate, and muses about how Iji is faring. Once you talk to Iji, he realizes the implications of Radahn stopping the stars and you can tell Blaidd as an alternative way of proceeding with Ranni's questline.

If you do this, Iji also mentions afterwards that now that fate has resumed, Sellen is deprived of her immortality, meaning that Jerren is not only free of his promise to Radahn, but also free to kill her.

[pipernell]

Just spitballing a fun train of thought: The contention between primeval sorcerers and those of the other conspectuses (idk how that would be pluralized?) made me think of the separation between subfields of physics in our world. As you were speculating on what the primeval current is, and its connection to the Void and the birth of stars, I wondered if primeval sorcery might be analogous to particle physics.

Particle physicists study the fundamental subatomic units of our universe, in order to understand how governing laws such as mass and gravity come about. Primeval sorcerers study glintstone as units of cosmic life, perhaps getting at how the divine Outer Gods may all originate from the same fundamental phenomena. Many particle physics experiments, in some way, seek to create a mini Big Bang by smashing together particles in an accelerator. Maybe primeval sorceries are doing something similar by creating a tiny sample of the primeval current in the mortal world: a glimpse into a primordial state of the cosmos when the primeval current was all-encompassing, not distantly operating in the Void.

Also funny to me to think about how people were freaking out when the particle physicists at CERN were starting up the Large Hadron Collider's experiments. How they'd end up making a black hole that would consume the planet or something. Our own cosmos are already horrifyingly eldritch and incomprehensible.

[silenthero]

When you accidentally stopped all fates of gods and men just so you can still ride your aging horse. Radahn is just built different.

[OPHIMOS]

I'm gonna be honest, I've held vaati as the standard for lore videos since he started, buuut... He isn't really making them anymore ("secrets" videos don't count), and your content is amazing.

A new contender has emerged.

[windsgrace]

I think it's interesting to note that Lustat's glintstone crown is similar in both shape and color to the large eye of in the skull of Astel.

[entysing]

Smough, you have quickly solidified yourself as my favorite Elden Ring Creator.
Excited to see what other content and games you plan to cover in the future.
Thanks for doing what you do, my friend.

[khandimahn]

Theory - Perhaps the reason the Golden Order came down so hard on astrologers, was because they saw astrology as a threat to their power. When fate is determined by something else, the ones in power feel threatened. It's possible they may have even seen the downfall of the Order in the stars? If so, then Radahn freezing the stars - denying the progress of fate - makes a lot of sense for one devoted to the Order. With the Primeval Current so closely tied to the stars and fate, it is no wonder those who wanted to restore it were persecuted.

[jeftecoutinho]

Your conclusion about The Void being the birth place of the stars is really interesting. Maybe it's a stretch, but i will take a step further and say that The Void is the birth place of all celestial bodies: meteorites, comets, stars etc.

So, by using glintstone sorcery, you would be actually sort of giving birth to a new celestial body, be it a comet (Comet Azur), a small comet (Glintstone Pebble), a meteor (Meteorite) or a cluster of stars(Stars of Ruin). Also, the Meteorite spell literally says that you call meteorites from "The Void".

[aranthur]

Already commented once lol, but taking some time to really let it sink in, I've had some additional thoughts

Specifically, I think it's interesting that while everybody makes such a distinction between sorceries and incantations, ultimately the source of incantations is just another creature sent down from the stars. In fact, if Hyetta is to be believed, all forms of life, star or god or whatever, were once part of the same being

Which kind of makes sense if you look at color schemes for magic in Elden Ring. The different kinds/sources of magic each seem to have their own distinct color. Red for the flame of ruin, orange for the frenzied flame, yellow for the greater will, green for most glintstone, blue for the moon, indigo for gravity, etc etc

It's almost like it all used to be one pure white current of energy that emerged from the darkness of the abyss and, somewhere along the way, passed through a prism that divided it into these distinct aspects. Aspects with not only their own magical properties, but with their own personalities and goals and desires

[retrospect]

Dude your narration and research is getting better every video.
100k by the end of the year guaranteed

[Zparkx]

Another near 1 hour lore video to enjoy over the weekend. Cant wait. Your content has been an absolute treat, and fine addition to the Elden Ring community. Thank you!

[opiesmith]

So the Carian Royals were the best astronomers, they gazed at the stars, mapped the stars, you can picture them mapping all astrological bodies and their orbits. Including falling stars. They would have knowledge of their orbital paths and they would be the only ones with the knowledge of say potential impacts and exactly where said impacts would happen. So they could see into the future in this way, and they would have known if one falling star might one day impact near a certain hidden city.. that would allow Ranni to progress her destiny against the Golden Order. But here comes Raddahn, with his study of gravity magic to stop, to arrest all these orbiting bodies, he stops any possibility of a falling star from impacting and opening the way to the eternal city, therefore hindering any attempt to thwart the Golden Order. We know this because the second the General dies and his gravity magic dispels all the falling stars he personally has stopped all at once begin their descents. Here is a physical scientific means for the Carians to be able to “see into the future” and see “destinies” with actual study of orbits and the stars, and other astrological bodies.