Midra and Goldmask have matching hats - The political positioning of Elden Ring.
This is an essay I wrote for an online gaming mag a while back, thought I'd publish it here too. If you're familiar with Elden Ring feel free to skip the intro paragraph, this was written for audiences who may not be familiar!
Elden Ring is a game about dogma. Here's what we can learn from it.
If you’re in the video game space, you’ve heard of Elden Ring. FROMSOFTWARE’s 2022 Game Of The Year winner, co-written by A Game Of Thrones author George R R Martin, is vast, complicated, widely adored… and no one knows what the hell is going on. In classic Fromsoft fashion, the story of the game is elusive, revealed through obscure item descriptions and flowery dialogue that demands players have a thesaurus at hand. And, though the story does have some established beats, I’m here to propose that none of that really matters. Put down the family tree (try to forget that all the characters are siblings) and just look for a moment. You’ll find two truths in your examination: every character is crazy, and every believer dies.Â
The countless belief systems in the world of Elden Ring can be likened to religions, cults, or political parties. While there are many relevant factions, this essay will focus on Marika’s Golden Order and the apocalyptic eye-melting cult of the Frenzied Flame. For those who aren't familiar, The Golden Order believes in order (shocker) and reincarnation - Marika, the Order’s founder, removed the concept of permanent death from the world, and, instead, when a person died, their spirit would be called back to the Erdtree, the object of the Order’s veneration, where they would be reincarnated. After a plot to release death back into the world, something interesting happened. Some people who died refused to answer the call of the Erdtree. They instead rose in death, "trespassing beyond life’s bounds”. To the Order, this was unacceptable. They sent out hunters to destroy all who had risen this way, using a holy incantation that prevented them from being reincarnated - “The role of the hunters is to stamp out defiled reason — all for the perfection of the Golden Order.” The dead refused to be reincarnated by the Erdtree, sullying the Order’s image, so they were not allowed to reincarnate at all.Â
Consider this for a moment. Those who did not conform to the established order were destroyed. No second chances. It’s worth mentioning that The Golden Order was the dominant belief system in this world, and, with that in mind, there are some obvious parallels that can be drawn between The Golden Order and real-life religions. The image of order and peace, striving for eternal life, the authority over who lives and who dies, and the dehumanisation of those who followed alternate faiths. It starts to feel all-too familiar in a time where abortion bans, restrictions on gender-affirming care and genocide are all implemented in the name of religion. Elden Ring calls it Order. Our world calls it Politics. All of it is dogma.Â
The Golden Order, of course, present themselves as righteous, scholarly. Ironically, their greatest scholar, the radiant Goldmask, discovered issues in the Order through his long and silent prayers, earning the scorn of even his most loyal student. Here, intellectualism and faith are at odds. Understanding the scripture is not necessary to kill in its name, in fact, it’s the antithesis. Do not have compassion. Do not look inwards. Only look up, where your God may be.Â
In contrast to Order, the followers of the Frenzied Flame believe in chaos. In the words of their prophet, Shabriri, “Burn the Erdtree to the ground, and incinerate all that divides and distinguishes… May chaos take the world!”. Followers believe that the world is too far gone, and therefore must be destroyed in order to start anew. Fromsoft is a fan of this sort of thing, and these options in their games aren’t always presented as the “bad ending”. In their previous titles Dark Souls and Dark Souls III, the player is given the option to let the flames of life burn out, so to speak, plunging the world into darkness. While this sounds bleak, it allows the world to progress naturally, free from the human-imposed cycles and attempts to exert order over the world in the name of personal comfort. There are similar arguments, then, for melting the world of Elden Ring down to nothing.Â
The words of Shabriri are cleverly crafted. He sells you a world free from oppression and division. A second thought would make one see that, of course, that would only be because there is no world left at all. It’s no wonder, then, that the loyalest followers of the Frenzied Flame are all blind. This is an important feature. If you turn a blind eye to the hateful, incompassionate rhetoric that arises from well-meaning religious ideas, you’ll end up burning the world to the ground. Interestingly, many players are sucked into the frenzied flame ending without even agreeing with the cult’s core beliefs. Along with his speech about chaos, Shabriri offers you an alternative to letting your companion, Melina, die. In all other endings, Melina uses herself as kindling to burn the seal on the Erdtree, allowing you inside to face Marika the Eternal. Shabriri, true to spirit, takes the moral high ground, instead suggesting you house the frenzied flame in your own body and use yourself as kindling. This, he tells you, is the only righteous way to become a lord. Nevermind that fact that Melina will die anyway when you burn the world that she lives in. Extreme political groups use these tactics, too. They construct strawmen to recruit vulnerable people who suddenly find themselves siding with some of the most deplorable people our society has to offer. Again, dogma. Fanaticism. Hysteria. It tracks that wielding the flame builds up madness in its followers until they eventually completely lose their minds in the name of their religion. All because they wanted to protect our women! – Ahem. Save Melina.
I’d like to share the imagery from the game that inspired this analysis. On the right, Goldmask, a Golden Order scholar, and on the left, Midra, Lord of the Frenzied Flame. Both have obscured faces. Both are bursting with light; fire. Both have their arms raised in prayer. Both are withered, emaciated, grey. This is the most striking commentary Elden Ring has to offer on dogma. The burning flames of passion completely replacing your identity, obscuring your humanity with a silent, insidious prayer. The loss of care and comfort, even for yourself, until you’re nothing but a sack of bones and insanity. These images serve as a lesson. There is no peace to be found in dogma. You must not turn a blind eye to the suffering of your fellow human. And most importantly, most profoundly, you must search your beliefs for flaws. That is how we mend a shattered world.
