Elden Ring Lore | Lionel Deep Dive

Discover the Story of the little known character in Elden Ring Lore, Lionel. What was his relationship to Fia, and Those Who Live in Death? Is he still alive? Enjoy our take on his Lore, delving into his daughter Fia, the D Twins, Godwyn, the Golden Order, Raani and more.

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Soundtrack:
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess OST - Kakariko Saved
Age of Mythology OST - Suture Self
Fire Emblem Rekka No Ken OST - Reminiscence
Stardew Valley OST - Mines (Star Lumpy)
Shadow of the Colossus OST - Lakeside
Hades OST - The Painful Way
Gothic 2 OST - Garrison Duty
Kingdom 2 Crowns OST - Lost but Warm
Bastion OST - A Proper Story
Fire Emblem Rekka No Ken OST - Shattered Life
Bastion OST - A Proper Story
Dicey Dungeons OST - The Crystal Mountain
Hollow Knight OST - Dream
Dark Souls 2 OST - Majula

#eldenringlore #eldenring #gaming

Hawkshaw.

[Hawkshaw]

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Hope you enjoy our take on the story of Lionel.
What are your thoughts on Lionel’s relationship with Fia - is it chivalrous… or odd?

[stingray]

"he preferred duels over other, less chivalrous forms of violence"
shows mages casting their stupid glintstone pebbles from a balcony, absolutely correct

[ThommyofThenn]

For being the ghostly reincarnation of our beloved onion brother, Lionel is such a mysterious character. Praise the black onion champion!

[ScyleOrnitier]

You know it's really interesting the cape on his back having three rapiers when Rogier also wields a rapier. But who could the third be

[WolfHreda]

*_Note to Self_* : Start Lionel cosplay playthrough and finally use all those death sorceries you literally haven't touched in a thousand hours.

[Antichupius]

“Prefers duels to other less chivalrous forms of violence” - proceeds to spam auto target skulls with infinite mana

[Casualcoyote]

I enjoyed this bit about Lionel, a charter that I didn't know too much about until after watching this video.

[nightscout]

This is an interesting assessment of what Lionel may have believed! For overall lore though, I feel many elements are missed here, and the truth might be much darker. For starters, we find what appears to be Lionel's corpse on a bed, but there's no body for the Deathbed Dress. This placement, and the notion that the other party left without their clothing, raises the disturbing implication that Lionel slept with his own daughter. Fia may have been adopted and, judging from the intro art, an adult upon becoming a Tarnished, but Lionel adopted her as his daughter nonetheless. This heinous deed implies a fall from honor for the supposedly virtuous man, and it's particularly abusive if the idea was all his own.

The position of Lionel's corpse on the bed also indicates that he was last alive while sitting up, so his corpse wasn't being held in some pagan attempt to revive him. Additionally, Lionel's corpse bears flaming burns on his legs, as if some power was destroying him. There's nothing to imply that Lionel was ever touched by the Frenzied Flame, so perhaps a literal diseased burning ended his life, as if to mirror Rogier's slow end from the Death Blight. Something similar appears to be the case with the corpse found in the Fortified Manor's equivalent to Fia's chamber, perhaps related to another champion in the boss fight, if Fia was ever among the Manor's era of Tarnished.

Some fragment of Lionel might fight for Fia's cause at the Deeproot Depths, but the very nature of the boss fight calls into question whether he's agreeing to this. We can infer from Rogier's actions and dialogue that he has been meeting with Fia before the player ever arrives in the Lands Between. Therefore, Fia has likely been taking Rogier's life force for some time. When Rogier begins dying at the Roundtable Hold, he'll make a peculiar comment that implies he has increasingly been losing his sense of self and freedom of choice:

"Hmm. Maybe I should tell you. Lately, I feel I'm on the precipice... Of falling into a deep...fathomless slumber. And I have an inkling it could spell trouble for you, somehow. So I just wanted to get the apology out of the way, beforehand. Since you're so scary and all."

Here Rogier feels that something of him, something separate from his own choices, decisions, and personal views, could become a danger for the player, and he's sorry that this might be the case. With the Fia's Champions boss fight, the worry has a clear answer -- Fia is manipulating people's souls to do her bidding. The whole, living person wouldn't do these things, but as a sliver and controlled by Fia, they'll become threats to people they normally see as friends. The coloration of these "champions" is also of particular importance here, as the only other time a blue spirit of that shade appears is when someone has been enslaved by Starlight Shards potions, when the person's free will is destroyed and their body becomes a "puppet."

Thus, Fia's "Champions" may actually be enslaved portions of people she has touched. If the person ultimately dies later, even more of their soul might be funneled into slavery, possibly explaining Lionel's status as the strongest "champion" aside from him being a knight. While his sign might still appear at the Radahn Festival, perhaps that too is a sort of ghost.

The concept of Spirit Ashes hardly dispels these worries, as the ashes themselves are just said to be carrying out old actions from life rather than entirely aware. Finlay carried Malenia to safety across the Lands Between, but Finlay's ashes can fight Malenia to the death. Tiche died to block a blow meant for her mother, showing how dearly she cared for Alecto. However, Tiche's ashes obey orders without hesitation despite the player killing Tiche's beloved mother to receive Tiche's remains.

Tricia was a doctor to the downtrodden, the misbegotten, the omens, etc., even fighting alongside a Misbegotten Warrior when encountered in a catacomb. However, the moment Tricia is killed by the player, the perfumer's ashes can be made to kill the very people who were her patients, the people she tried to cure and risked her life to defend. Latenna alone seems to keep any shred of her will as a summon, but she'll still attack her fellow Albinaurics. Only the Stormhawk King can refuse this summon, keeping his full mind and will.

Back to Lionel's actions, one of his spells is concerning: Rancorcall, an art that commands the ancient souls of those burned in Ghostflame then raked out by the Deathbirds. Nothing about the Deathbirds' conduct implies that they denied anyone evil a "proper" rest or death. Instead, the Sacrificial Axe and Branchsword talismans, carried by the Deathbirds themselves, note them to be malevolent and fixated on ways in which people suffer and die. There is thus no intention for Ghostflame to ever bring rest to the deceased, and the tool simply torments souls until they become mindless pawns that inflict torment in turn. With this proof of what befell people predating the Erdtree, the figurative predecessors to Those Who Live in Death, Lionel instead embraces exploiting the very souls Fia supposedly wants to save.

The Ghostflame, the Death Blight, etc. making the dead mindless and violent is implied even for those with bodies. The player can encounter Darian in the overworld as he mourns the death of a random civilian at the hands of the undead. The culprit is the Tibia Mariner of the nearby Summonwater Village, a place destroyed by Those Who Live in Death, and this ghoulish figure hardly even shows kindness to his skeleton pawns, instead crushing them recklessly with his boat. The tragedy of Summonwater Village is evidently repeated near the Artist's Shack in Liurnia and the Wyndham Ruins at Altus Plateau, and the Deathroot growing there further emphasizes the connection to Those Who Live in Death.

Speaking of D's presence at Summonwater, the Hunter of the Dead is hardly forcing Fia to seek shelter in the Roundtable Hold. Darian will leave to search for Deathroot to help Gurranq, implied to be a regular occurrence. Furthermore, Fia's actions betray no fear of D either. If players ignore Fia and go to the Deeproot Depths, Fia will nonetheless appear once her "champions" are defeated. This cuts the Roundtable Hold part of her quest entirely, letting players simply work for Ranni then hand Fia one cursemark even before killing Maliketh. Speaking of cursemarks, if players choose to kill D near Summonwater, he won't drop any such cursemark, so it's likely that he never had one after all.

What this indicates, along with Fia having the Weathered Dagger, is that Fia already had Godwyn's cursemark and instead sought to kill D for hunting the undead. The Weathered Dagger was likely damaged and marred with Death Blight from the time when Devin, Beholder of Death carved it from Godwyn's corpse, and the rune probably adhered to the blight in the blade. Rather than staying true to a noble goal, Lionel and Fia seem to be straying from the honorable intentions they claim to fight for. The father and daughter also appear to turn blind eyes to the things implying that Those Who Live in Death are not merely people with a stigma.

Fia's endeavors are even at odds with restoring the world, as "Destined Death" rejoining the Elden Ring would seemingly just fully kill the undead. The cursemarks of death are also the broken halves of a single cursemark designed to kill a person's body and soul. Instead, as observed in the Duskborn ending, Fia's rune preserves the plague, the Death Blight mist and the flies that dart around Godwyn's corpse. Even if she may have started with good intentions, Fia's actions could ultimately thwart a return of true death to the Golden Order and instead make the misery of Those Who Live in Death eternal. Therefore, if Lionel indeed willingly supported Fia's goals without wavering, then he too turned a blind eye to a fundamental flaw in the plan.

Wow, that posted ended up way longer than I intended it to be. Thanks again for the insightful videos!

[arthurhsu]

My own personal wild guess:
The three rapier pointing the eclipse represents Lionel, Rogier and Prisoner. All three of them are using sorcery and are obsessed with death (which might be the reason prisoner is imprisoned?).

[fnafking]

Lionels design looks like a mixture of Siegward Of Catarina (Bulbous Armor), Big Hat Logan (Hat and Wand), and Black Hat Badger (Hat is made of Iron). It’s 🔥

[McLuvin]

Age of Mythology music in the back - an absolute gentleman and scholar.

[rainbowkrampus]

Lionel mirroring Catarina knight themes while barely being in the game.
I dunno, it hits different.
Still feels like we're missing our jolly beer man even if making him a three musketeers reference is a notable improvement.

[demilung]

Pretty sure the Undead "choosing" to not return to Erdtree is either a misunderstanding by that ghost or a some specific case, because those who champion Those Who Live in Death say how they are persecuted due to "no fault of their own".

[IronForce-ffqx]

I know it’s never comfirmed but one can asume that The Roundtable Hold might have some sort of ward over it that prevents people from killing each other(since Ensha had to transport us to an alt version of the Hold, to kill us) that why Fia is trapped since she’s unable to kill D. But then she somehow found a way to dispel the ward in that storage room and used us to bait D (since if she went to D, he might have not fall for it).

[satyasyasatyasya]

The Age of Mythology music is a trip I didn't expect to take lol

[A_Potato_of_Infinite_Wisdom]

Damn, I just noticed Gothic 2 music playing at 8:38. Hawkshaw is truly a man of culture, not just for Fromsoftware games, but gaming in general.

[TheBlaringBlue]

Finally got around to watching this from my Watch Later backlog. Glad I did, it's fantastic! I have notes:

I wrote up a reddit piece where I explored Fia's movements and goals in the story, attempting to understand how her questline plays out since it's pretty murky. I pretty much had it, but I could never come up with a way in which she retrieves the dagger... How I never thought about Lionel (or even Rogier, frankly) being the ones to get it for her is beyond me. They're literally her 'champions, ' goodness me it was so obvious. Great work on this.

I also had no idea that Lionel being 'her' father or 'the' father was a change that was made. This has me twisting my perspective on Lionel, not as a dude who slept with his own daughter, but as a dude who wanted to be the father of Those Who Live in Death, or the very least, the Mending Rune that Fia gives birth to. Fia giving birth at the end of the questline literally would make Lionel 'the father' as opposed to her father. I much prefer this.

Your mention of Lionel's participation in the Radahn fight was also an 'aha' moment for me. I kind of thought he was just there for kicks and gigs, but he has a motive. FromSoft really do think of everything.

Lastly, I only wish the video spoke about his death. Does he sleep with Fia one last time as he's falling victim to deathblight? Maybe because he touched the dagger, too? Does Fia... betray him, absorbing all his vigor when she realized we are the champion she's needed, not Lionel?

[TheOmegaMan]

Full list of music used in the video…

You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a content creator…

[NoOne]

Love the age of mythology music in the background

[RidireOiche]

Nothing in the game points to this but I like to think in the 5000 years since the shattering a warrior pot found Lionel's body and instead of just milling about in a corner somewhere the pot took his honourable nature and became Iron Fist Alexander.