Madman or Genius? | Goldmask Lore | Elden Ring

Man literally t-posed so hard he made gods have to obey the law.

>T-Poses in reflection the entire game >Becomes so attuned to reality by standing on a bridge pointing at a big tree that he discovers a way to repair the very logic of the universe >Fixes everyone's problems >Refuses to elaborate further >Dies Goldmask is a straight up Chad

what a cool character honestly. he decided to have a mind of his own and then t-posed on the golden order. great video

Came to the lands between Realized that gods are imperfect Fixed it T-posed All without saying a word

The lore The cosplay The voice Perfection ❤

I don't think Goldmask is ultimately a fundamentalist of the Golden Order. I think during his quest he becomes a fundamentalist of the Greater Will. His study of the Erdtree is him trying to understand what the Greater Will actually planned for the world, not what the religion of the Golden Order says it wants. And it does seem he is successful. His Rune most likely is far closer to the Greater Will's actually design for the world than Queen Marika's take on it.

I love how despite being constantly silent throughout our journey, Goldmask manages to tell us so much about the world, the golden order and its philosophy, a true master indeed ...

when Goldmask said "..." I. was. in. tears . the voice actor did such a magnificent job

14:09 I should mention that in the Japanese version of the game, ONLY Fia’s [Mending Rune] is said to have been gestated (translated closer to the English word “conceived”). However, the Japanese text for Dung Eater’s [Mending Rune] doesn’t mention the rune’s origin, it only mentions that it is [The Mending Rune of the Dung Eater] (nothing in the text mentions anything about it being gestated, created, or even discovered). I don’t know why they chose to mention “gestation” for the text of his [Mending Rune] in the English version when none was mentioned in the Japanese version. 🤷‍♂️ For Goldmask, it does indeed mention in Japanese that his [Mending Rune] was discovered by him. And it even translates accurately to the English word “discovered”, instead of a different synonym, like with Fia’s. Figured I’d still include this part as well, even though it’s already accurately mentioned in the video

First couple seconds of the video pretty much sums up the Elden Ring T pose run im doing rn (im in so much pain)

I absolutely love these Loreplays. Your outfits are always so well done!

Like the quick t-pose cut!

It sounds silly, but having the right voice really does wonders for the souls vibe. Like Vaitti, if you close your eyes, the wispiness in tone sounds like something straight from an npc in the games themselves. The vibe in general reminds me of the Librarian in the old Mummy movies played by Rachel Weisz. Not everyone appreciates the style of story telling found in souls games, but it allows for beautiful stuff like this within the community. Thanks for sharing your interest, this is great.

Regular Elden Ring player: Simp for Ranni True Intellectuals: Simp for the Ever Brilliant Gold Mask

This is my interpretation: First, I want to get out of the way that I wonder if Goldmask dying despite Brother Corhyn's death is simply a game oversight. That'll be important later. The moment when Goldmask begins to be critical of the Golden Order is effectively when he learns about Radagon. What, or who, is Radagon? From everything we know, Radagon seems to be a "puppet" - for lack of a better word - for the Greater Will. Every single thing we know about Radagon shows him forwarding the goals and interests of the Greater Will itself, to the "detriment" of Marika in that she loses control of herself when he's in play. It's notable for example that Marika shattered the Elden Ring whilst Radagon attempt to repair it: the two do not have aligning interests. This is where Goldmask questions the "holism" of the Golden Order, aka that it's one giant entity that happily and flawlessly works together. And he's right to question this. Our knowledge we gain implies a rebellious Marika who was very much trying to get out from under the thumb of the Greater Will. Why she desires this and if it's justified, we do not know. This is basically the big question of the game, imo, that we yet lack enough in-game knowledge to deduce: it's likely that either Marika or the Greater Will is the villain, but because the two work together so closely for the majority of history, it's difficult to say what decisions are Marika's and which are the Greater Will's, thus we cannot know why conflict arose between these two, nor make a decision on which of them is more justified. But Goldmask...? He either does know or makes such a choice. To me, Goldmask is specifically targeting Marika and other lesser Gods, not the Greater Will itself. And why not? From our knowledge of the game, the "fickleness" arises when characters such as Marika and Ranni refuse to fall in line and begin acting out. And he's right: the Lands Between have greatly suffered because of the actions of Marika, Ranni, Rykard and others. The Greater Will is at the very least consistent, but the various other Gods have acted out in a variety of damaging ways. The Shattering led to the chaos the Lands Between has now. Ranni's little trick to preserve her soul (at least, that's our best known interpretation) has spawned the Death Blight curse, and it seems to be continuously spreading further and further from Godwyn's corpse, with no solution in sight. Rykard waged the bloodiest war the Lands Between has ever seen and to this day leads an order that seeks to sacrifice others, and even various other Gods such as Malenia and Radahn waged wars. It is basically fact that the people of the Lands Between have suffered because of the fickleness - or personalities and imperfections - of the Gods below the Greater Will. To me, what Goldmask has deduced is the Shattering. He's deduced that Radagon need not exist unless Marika was acting out. His entire existence can only be explained by a Greater Will that needs additional measures to be taken to keep it's "right hand" in check. And to me, this means that what Goldmask essentially seeks is to remove the need for an Empyrean at all for the Greater Will to be able to establish it's rule. Either directly by removing the need for Empyrean entirely so the system can function without them, or by virtue of a selected Empyrean completely losing their free will, likely in the form of it "Radagon'ing" all the active Empyreans permanently. The Outer Gods need a vessel to house the Elden Ring in the form of an Empyrean. It's why the Rot God and it's subjects venerate Malenia: because she offers a clear path for the Rot God to take over. It's why the Carians venerate Ranni, because she too can offer a path for the Moon. But what if this wasn't the case and the Greater Will could rule directly without need of Marika or other Gods below them who might rebel...? I think that when analyzing "what happened," this highlights heavy flaws of the Empyreans, but not necessarily of the Greater Will. The Greater Will said "do this thing," the Empyreans (Marika and Ranni in particular) said "no," and thousands of people died and suffered because they stepped out of line. And thus, Goldmask concludes the problem is with the #2 rank of people in charge. Now, this would imply that depending what exactly the Greater Will is, it's motivations, and whether it's good or bad, Goldmask either has one of the best or one of the worst endings. I personally feel like the only crimes we've seen of the Greater Will are an unexplained hatred of the Misbegotten and Omens, a war against the Carians that was proven unnecessary and that the Greater Will seems to have eventually acknowledged as a mistake, and yes, an oppressive level of control over it's direct subjects. All other instances of hostility from the Greater Will can be justified in some form: the Fire Giants are called the direct enemies of the Erdtree, the dragons were a great threat in terms of power and seemingly supported other Gods/Orders, and the Merchants were indeed servants of the Frenzied Flame. (though timeline is unclear here; either both parties were tricked or the Merchants were tricked into serving the Frenzied Flame and the Greater Will proactively locked them up) This isn't to say the Greater Will is flawless; it has questionable acts under it's belt. However, in the world of the Lands Between, there will be an Outer God. Someone is going to be in charge, the only question being who. Compared to the other Outer Gods we've seen, the Greater Will is a saint. It built a flourishing society structure that functioned for hundreds or thousands of years until Marika caused the Shattering. Meanwhile, the Rot God wants to rot everything away, the Formless Mother has this weird obsession with blood an injuries, the Frenzied Flame legit wants to burn away everything, and the Moon is a giant question mark where, best case it's an absolute nihilist/pacifist that just lets people do as they please and cares not for the Lands Between, but it's questionable if such an Outer God could retain power in the face of other threats such as the Rot God. If we must choose one of these Outer God, then there is absolutely no question that the Greater Will is at the very least one of only 2 we would want in power, and perhaps the better choice since it more aggressively protects it's claim against hostiles. (and boy does this world have hostiles!) Want to add here: to my understanding, Marika is the one granting people such as ourselves Grace. And as such, if Marika suddenly has a change of heart and grants Corhyn Grace despite his past "crimes," and Corhyn is indeed responsible for Goldmask's death, this would reinforce my theory. It's hard to say though because we have no idea how omniscient these gods are. In conclusion, I think Goldmask simply throws his hat in with the Greater Will and seeks to eliminate the need for Empyreans, thus the "fickleness of the Gods" line. This means no future "Shatterings," no future Death Blight curses, no grand tragedies because Empyreans stepped out of line. And depending on what DLC might reveal about Marika/The Greater Will, this has potential to be the best ending in the game.

So, I'm fairly certain that the reason Radagon was unable to mend the Elden Ring is because he was unable to sacrifice himself to mend it. Every Tarnished who creates/births a mending rune does so at the cost of their own life. But since Radagon is Marika, his desire to mend the Elden Ring was thwarted by the Greater Will crucifying his other half, trapping him in a purgatory state. Hence why we as another Tarnished, must fight him. He is defending the Elden Ring, defending the Golden Order created by his alter-ego after she shuns it.

I always found the description of the mending rune of perfect order pretty interesting, the other two mending runes you have to create yourself, but it's specifically stated that Goldmask discovered this rune, as if it was waiting to be found by someone. You just so happen to find it in the same spot Goldmask started to question the golden order, so I imagine at that moment Goldmask reached a state of enlightenment, and when he returned the mending rune of order was given to him by the Greater Will as a gift

I always thought Gold Mask's critique of Marika was removing the rune of death from the Elden Ring. He thinks the Elden ring in its original golden order state was perfect, and Marika ruined it by fiddling with it and removing the death rune. He believes that not even the gods should be allowed to tamper with the laws of reality.

About the ability to decipher Goldmasks movements: When you look at bodyless weapons like the Cipher Pata, that you can find at the Roundtable Hold, they have written runes instead of blades. And that style of writing definitely looks like something you could draw with your fingers in the air, because it's a continous and flowing style. ... However, that still doesn't explain why Corhyn can read it while wearing a blindfold.

Unless there's other lore on it, it just struck me that GM's mask is modeled on the ointment saying - black dots on an otherwise golden circle... A very informative video, thank you for these 🩶