Elden Ring Lore | Night of the Black Knives Dissected

On a Night of Wintry Fog, the Black Knife Assassins struck down Godwyn the Golden and changed the world forever. Yet despite its importance, there are many details about this night that are hotly debated. Join me this week as we answer some of the deeper questions surrounding the event.

Intro: 0:00
The Golden Age: 1:59
Foul Covenant: 11:39
Marika is Innocent: 37:50
Killing Fate: 45:02
The Night of the Black Knives: 54:55
Aftermath: 1:09:37
Ordina Liturgical Town: 1:13:39
A Night O' Wintry Fog: 1:14:30

This is an extremely expansive video that not only looks at Astel but also covers the following subjects: Glintstone, Crystalians, Onyx Lords, Alabaster Lords, Gravity Magic, Rennala, The Carians, The Primeval Current, Two Fingers, Greater Will, Elden Beast, The Lands Between, Raya Lucaria and More!

Shout out to Lokey and Mirko (u/LaMi_1) for their insights and translations.
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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 #eldenringlore #gaming

[SmoughTown]

Thank you everyone for watching my dissection on the Night of the Black Knives!

Would love to hear your thoughts below!

How to support the channel:

[finnbean]

Brother knows so much about these games he could teach souls lore at a university

[nev]

I wish Rogier had more lines of dialog and lore to tell us. His voice actor and much more friendly demeanor than Ofnir's makes him one of my favorite characters.

[MercedesSLSJpak]

Something awesome about Godwyn I’ve noticed - many people have pointed out how he’s kind of a fungal essence spreading rot throughout the erdtree, but the fact that he has a giant growth under Stormveil is critical to me because it’s the windiest place in The Lands Between and presumably that’s spreading his spores further and further, maybe even to Farum Azula and that’s how he showed up there

[scribesorcerer]

I always felt shattering the Elden Ring was an act of suicide. Radagon spent much time trying to convince Marika to keep going, to keep being the God-Queen. But when she had lost so many children, her beloved son Godwyn’s corpse became an infectious pestilence of undeath, when her daughter was wasting away with Scarlet Rot, these things broke her steadily over time until she couldn’t handle it anymore.

I always felt that Marika was meant to be different from Gwyn and other figures who ruled their worlds. She broke her world because it was the only thing that could kill her, because she suffered so much in between promising the Tarnished’s return to claim the Elden Ring, and tasking Hewg to make a weapon that could kill her.

[RosemaryTravale]

I wonder if Iji could have been the one who carved the other half of the rune into Ranni, and that is the reason why the black knife assassins go after him. Someone had to do it for her since it was on her back, and it seems that the rest of the black knives were out doing their murders. If they really had no idea about Ranni's secret plot to shed her body, then it had to be someone in Ranni's circle and it seems unlikely Blaidd could do it and I get the idea that Ranni would not allow herself to be in such a moment of weakness with that creep Seluvis (she never seems to full trust him, or at least know he's a scheming dingus)

[giovanniprovost]

Shoutout to you, Hawkshaw, Quelaag, Zullie and of course our boy Vaati for consistently helping me understand hidden nuance in this incredible game. I especially love that you allow us to make our own assumptions about what could be going on, and still manage to educate me MASSIVELY. Props to you and the entire Soulsborne lore community.

[kasp]

Another fantastic video.

I have always wondered why Ranni would have to specifically kill Godwyn the Golden to get rid of her Empyrean flesh. Couldn't it have been anyone? And why kill so many other demigods as well? But after watching this video I think I finally got it.

What would people think, if Ranni just abandoned her empyrean flesh? I don't think that could be interpreted as anything other than her rebelling against the Greater Will. But by having multiple demigods killed, she can essentially play it off as her just being another one of the victims. By then helping to hunt down the assassins and even imprisoning their leader, she can even earn a good deal of goodwill.

[aifos]

8:50 also when you use the ash of war of the golden epitaph you can see Miquella's sigil, the description is definitely referring to him

[seanfussa]

One question about godwyn is "How did he start spreading death root?" I believe that nobody understood what was happening on the Night of the Black Knives. In the aftermath someone, probably a relative like Marika, took Godwyn to the roots of the Erdtree in order to give him an erdtree burial and reincorporate his soul. His body, being unable to die due to the incomplete curse, started the process of erdtree burial, but since he couldn't be killed his body started to spread like an infection in order to protect itself. It ends up all over the lands between spreading through the erdtree's vast roots leading to the vast propagation of deathroot we see today. People probably only realized that he was soulless after they put him through erdtree burial.

[dublk]

Man I just wanna say I appreciate your videos I’m a computer science major and In the past with souls games I would spend all my time trying to understand the lore of the world by exploring in game but haven’t had the time. I fr appreciate the effort you put into these videos and it’s a nice escape from the day to day grind of being a student keep up the good work.

[VDShinigami]

I really like this kind of long form content, granted it's obviously long and a lot to take in, but it's really nice to watch on long days where it feels like you have nothing to do, also there's a lot of thought and lore implications given with no drawbacks to ideas cause there no 15/20 min time-frame to work under, and even if you can't finish the video in one sitting(at least for me) it give me something to look forward to after I get finished with a busy day. Love your content man, can't wait to see more!

[spiritas]

Sellia was also where Rahdan learned gravity magic from a alabaster lord. The black knife armor seems to bend light similar to how light bends around galaxies and black holes from gravitational lensing.

[ImarBenIsrael]

Ahhhh man, my favorite group in the game, the Nox/Numen and the squad, the black knife assassins . Yes sir we here for the lore Smough

[jeffphisher]

The "foul" in could convenant probably refers to the fact that ranni and the black knives were allies but she obviously did something to piss them off since they kill iji and go to kill her as well. It's referring to a false/bad allegiance

[YeOldeMachine]

I really wish they would release a version of GRRM's mythos. I like to think it's something similar to the style of "Fire & Blood". Kind of a recounting of history as told by an ancient noble. I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

[Writh]

I know it is a leap on my part but I assumed the reason that the other demi-gods end up soulless was because Ranni gave the Black Knives bad info. She taught them the sigil to carve into their target's flesh. It would make sense that she discerned the two halves of the now circular Rune of Death and only taught them the side she needed them to use. The positioning of the two halves of the rune on each back doesn't have either centered in a way to convey that the full circle was ever intended. Since it all happened fairly simultaneously they wouldn't be able to check in with each other to realize Ranni screwed them and only taught them half the rune.
Remember Ranni stole the rune and Ranni performed the rite. The Black Knives just took their equipment and went to work.

[varsoonhks]

"Ranni is not a villain..."
Hard disagree.

She plots the inciting action of the shattering; an assassination against her own kin and the one demigod who is generally agreed to be a good dude. Conspiracy of the murder of several political figures and familicide is textbook villainy.

Her motivations are to rid herself of the fate of an Empyrean but she's not even the only Empyrean and we're shown that fate can be altered in other means anyway. So she basically choose the most violent and catastrophic way to accomplish her goals, putting the lives of others as less valuable than her own. That's pretty villainous.

She abandons all of her allies and anyone who trusts her dies because of her poorly executed plans and betrayals. She even intends to abandon you as well. Even if she talks about love for Iji and Blaidd, her actions speak far louder than her words. Abandoning people close to you who do all your work for you and failing to do anything to protect your so-called loved ones against enemies you purposefully made? Not exactly a Heroic virtue.

After condemning the world to having a shattered order and undead prowling the lands, what's her plan to set things right? She literally just wants to abandon the world and rescind any kind of leadership or mending as she goes to explore the cosmos. Even if all of her literal backstabbing has somehow left the Lands Between freed of the influence of the Greater Will, she's done nothing to resolve the issues of all the other Outer influences and is leaving humanity to just suffer whatever cruelties might befall them despite having the god-like power to change things for the better. Abandoning the entirety of the world to known threats and abdicating using power responsibly whatsoever because you didn't want that responsibility? Absolutely a villain move.

I've come to absolutely despise Ranni, the pretender princess in her ivory tower, who has to sit on top of books to pretend to be taller than she really is, whose best friend is a dog literally made to love her, and who modelled herself and her ideals entirely off of a crazy old snow witch. The first thing she does to you in the game is lie to you and yet so many players act as if following her is the right thing to do or the 'best ending' when it is worse than even Dung Eater's.

[Goob_V]

The way I’ve always thought about the “close ties with Marika” is that whoever the assassins were, she basically used to be friends with them in high school. 🤷‍♂️

[vinsarrow]

There is another odd loose link between Marika and Ranni, besides just the Black Knife Set.

That would be Torrent and Melina. Ranni directly approaches you under the alias of Renna at the church, because of a promise she made to Torrent's original owner.

The only other owner we know of for Torrent, a 'Spectral' Steed, is Melina, whom is currently burned & body less, herself.

Nevermind that, Melina is heavily implied to be the Gloam Eyed Queen originally, who would align with Rani's agenda atleast to a degree.

But it seems to be Marika herself who brought Melina back from her dead state. After all Melina herself says her mother gave her a purpose & she can only move freely on her own in the capital, near the Erd Tree & Marika.

Furthermore, Melina leaves your side to do "something" in the capital on her own. Only being seen again to help you with Morgott at The Throne using Black Knife fighting techniques & weaponry, oddly 'past' a random Black Knife Assassin by Queen Marika's Bed Chamber & after the Erd Tree blocks you.

It's entirely possible Melina, the Gloam Eyed Queen. Has something to do with the Black Knives deciding to go after Rani. Rather or not Melina was acting on her own to team up with the Black Knife Assassins or under Marika's orders for revenge or a grand plot is speculation.

Meanwhile Gideon seems to believe Marika wants everyone to be stuck in a stalemate of sorts too. After-all Marika, Gideon & Melina all make odd comments.

The Torrent Connection is very much a enigma.