Messmer & The Abyssal Serpent | Elden Ring Lore

Thank you everyone for watching my take on Messmer - Let me know your thoughts below. Check out my Elden Ring lore book here: www.tuneandfairweather.com/collections/grace-given…

I love how they made Messmer feel so connected to the rest of the family without ever interacting with them. He looks just like Malenia in his second phase, Radahn looked up to him as an older brother, he has a similar personality to Morgott, he inspires loyalty and is well liked by the people who follow him like Miquella, he’s associated with serpents like Rykard, he has one eye and is used to burn down a tree like Melina, and his theme is like a darker, more tragic version of Radagon’s theme.

Man messmer would have been the coolest older brother. He's very soft spoken and chill but also capable, he has the best pets, the most badass girlfriend, his best bro is a huge ass guy who rides a boar, and everybody who gets to know him personally swears he's a great guy.

I think "A man torn and conflicted" sums up Messmer's character. It's clear he never truly bought the mission his mother was selling him and when he was locked away it's almost certain he suspected he himself was the real reason the crusade happened or at least part of it. Look at the company he kept, the fierce loyalty he inspired, and the fact he allowed the conservation of the Shadow Land's culture despite being in charge of purging it all. None of those are the mark of a zealot, but the mark of someone hoping for all that is holy that the most tragic of possibilities is not true. But upon seeing his mother select the Tarnished as a potential Lord elect it confirmed his worst fears. It's all because of him. Because of his mother's fear of him, an entire culture was purged, close friends and loyal men were forced to lose everything and stain their hands with blood of a people's who had done nothing at present. All of it, all of it, because his mother had given up trying to save him, and would rather seal Messmer away. Reviled and forgotten. And so, in the end, all Messmer could do is curse his mother's name and her machinations for causing him to condemn so many people just by his sheer existence. I would argue it's fine to use "tragic" to define Messmer because he is a tragic character. A monster to many, absolutely, but a son forced to become monster only to realize it was for nothing. Whether this realization is the cause for why Melina, under the presumption she is the Glome Eyed Queen, wanted her mother and her rein dead, is something to consider at least.

One mystery to me is the nature of the possible relationship between the abyssal serpent and Marika. Messmer's remembrance reads: "A malevolent snake writhed within Messmer, and so his very mother plucked out his eye and put in its place a seal of grace. Yet, having done so, her fear compelled her to secret away her child within the realm of shadow. Hidden away—keeping company with the original sin, and a hatred that would not be confined." I think most people have glossed over the nature of the "original sin" mentioned in the remembrance. We don't have a lot information on what Marika did in the shadow lands before she passed through the gates of divinity after all. But in Christianity, the "original sin" was the seduction of Eve by the devil, who convinced her to disobey God by eating the fruit of the tree of life while in the guise of a serpent. The devil argued that God did not want humans to eat the fruit because they would become His equal, gods themselves. The remembrance says that Messmer is keeping company with the original sin. I would suggest that instead of the sin being a vague wrongdoing Marika did to achieve Godhood that merely happened in the shadow realm, Messmer is literally always In the company of the original sin because it is inside him- the abyssal serpent. Perhaps the serpent is directly related to Marika's ascension to godhood, her knowledge, and her access to the gate of divinity. Perhaps Marika made a pact with the serpent somehow, gaining the power to acquire godhood, punish her tormentors, and avenge her village but at the cost of a common sacrifice in fiction: her firstborn. Just as in Christianity the original sin is said to pass onto the children of Adam and Eve, and then onto their children, and from there all humanity, the original sin of Marika passed directly onto her firstborn son in a literal sense, perhaps even as a term of the pact. There are a lot of holes in this theory and a lot of conjecture that lacks in-game support. The role of the Greater Will and Marika's two fingers implied to exist by Ymir are big possible complications. The theory also fails to answer why the serpent would want this pact or why it wouldn't serve as Marika's god instead of the Greater Will if it desired power or domination, like most of the outer gods seem to. But the connection between the original sin as a concept in real life religion and serpents seems too obvious and compelling a connection to be made within Messmer's remembrance to be coincidental.

Red hair, and a hand-me-down robe? You must be a child of Radagon

"tapeworm of unfathomable power" gonna be a metal song one day

What’s interesting to me is that there seems to be a part of Erdtree society that despised the Crusade. If they all thought that the hornsent deserved death, they wouldn’t shun those who went on the crusade. Also, Marika wouldn’t have to make Messmer a scapegoat. So either not all in Erdtree society hates the hornsent, or, they did, but they still feared those who would do such horrendous crimes returning to normal society.

There's an aspect of Messmer "playing the part of the Impaler" that was pointed out to me by, of all things, TVTropes' Funny Moments page for the game: In his cutscene, when he says "Mongrel intruder," it has the feel of the start to an imperious "How dare you trespass" speech, but the tone of his voice has a note of boredom to it, like he's dealt with people coming for his head a thousand times and he's just going through the motions. (Which in turn gives way to genuine surprise/confusion when he realizes the player is Tarnished.) He really is playing the part, like an actor saddled with a single well-known role he's been dissatisfied with for quite some time.

⁠​​⁠Speaking of Miquella, it’s interesting that you can find one of his crosses in the Shadow Keep, implying that for whatever reason, Miquella entered/snuck into the keep and may or may not have interacted with Messmer. Kinda weird how Messmer was just chilling next door as one of his demigod siblings is busy ascending to godhood while using someone he was buddies with in the past as his consort. Imagine how shocked, angered and/or horrified Messmer would be if he were to find out what happened to Radahn.

Messmer has a reputation of Terror but when we meet him he's not obnoxious or boastful. He's this laid back macabre man with a quiet confidence. All the other Demigods: you won't stop my agenda and get my shard Tarnished! Messmer: Your Tarnished? No further questions needed. Time to die.

Now just imagine Marika standing somewhere aside the Land of Shadow and suddendly pulling out a giant bed sheet out from under her robe and throw it over the Scadu Tree and the lands around it "One, two, three, PRESTO!!! And the the Hornsent, my problematic Firstborn and all those things that kept bugging me are gone!" - round of Applause from the Leyndell Royalty

I personally think that Marika being a Shaman, and the Hornsent abusing and flaying the shamans was one of the main motivators for her to conduct this purge. The minor erdtree incantation says "Marika bathed the village of her home in gold, knowing full well that there was no one to heal." (And the village is called Shaman Village, basically outright saying she was a Shaman.). To me, that seemed to imply that her motivation to even start her crusade and conquest was the Hornsent flaying and murdering her people, and having killed all members of her village, except for her. I think that her sealing Messmer away was why she kept the crusade going, despite sealing and abandoning her son, writing him out of history. Probably out of fear mostly, but partially probably also because she understood that if people knew what she did, that would greatly tarnish her reputation and renown. Although, on an unrelated note, it makes me wonder about her motivation for the shattering. Before the DLC, I always believed that it was a culmination of two of her children being Omen, and thus locked away, another child dying and even more of her children being afflicted with curses. The song of Lament that the bat ladies sing has a line that translates roughly to "Golden One, at whom you were angry? (Aureum, cui irascebaris?)" which I always took to mean that Marika was angry at her own Golden Order. Because not only was one of her children murdered and turned into a rotting mass of undeath, two of her children being locked away and hidden, which can't have been nice, and others being cursed without a way to heal them. Now I think that Morgott and Mohg being Omens probably played a bit of a bigger part in this. Because she created a world that persecuted hornsent and omen for the crimes committed against the Shamans. Marikas people. And thus, seeing two of her children with crucible aspects, and most specifically horns must have been a grimm reminder not only of her pain, but also her crusade and hatred towards the Hornsent. Not enough of a reason to shatter the Elden Ring, but probably something that added to her motivation to do so. And when Godwyn got murdered, it could have made her lose all faith in her order, shatter the Elden Ring and call back the tarnished, to establish new order, and bring about a new age.

Ymir's High Priest Hat says "The circular design at the top represents the Greater Will and its lightless abyss," which makes me very curious about the relationship between the serpent and the Greater Will if the abyss belongs to it in some way

I think it might be worth thinking that maybe the M naming convention isn't indicative of a child of Marika and Radagon. The M naming covention might just be for the children of Marika who were born afflicted. Morgott and Mohg but have the naming convention but are children of Godfrey.

i find it interesting that Radahn's swords are stated to be made of black steel, a material associated with Messmer's army of black knights and to my knowledge, one not found outside the lands of shadow, Maliketh's set is said to be made of black iron, not steel, and i cant think of anything else that would use the material.

it’s my opinion that melina is cursed by the gloam eyed queen in the same way each of her other children is cursed. the fact that one eye is gold and the other eye is gloam, that she promises destined death for the the lord of frenzied flame, and that she wields the blade of calling and dodges like a black knife assassin, i think all hint to me that she has been a tool for marika, which is probably why she appears to be really deliberate and thoughtful when she says that she plans to follow through with the plan marika has for her to burn the erdtree

I would like to propose a different theory with the 'M' naming convention. Every time it is brought up, people seem to just completely forget that Mohg and Morgott exist. I think the 'M' names do not reference being born to Radagon x Marika, but that it symbolizes that all such children are cursed.

My guy, the world is insane right now and i was never gonna get to sleep but here you are , thanks

My theory about Melina is that she too syffered a fate similar to Messmer. Marika needed someone to kill the old gods to pave her way. And infact we read a lot about the ancient gods of the lands of shadow, specifically about the hornsent god, but we never see them. So my best guess is that after Melina as a gloam eyed queen and her godskins became obsolete Marika, having acquired Maliketh, ordered her to abandon the power of destined death, but Melina probably refused to leave her purpose. And that's why she's still looking for her purpose, having being used by her mother like Messmer