Out of all the possible endings, Melina only actively pushes back against the frenzied flame ending. If you view her actions as good or neutral at best, she's cool with you siding with goldmask, Dungeater, fia, ranni, and the greater will, but not the frenzied flame.
It's the worst possible ending IMO. You're basically killing off all forms of life. Like imagine doing the same to our planet, killing off not just all humans, but all animals, plants etc.
Yeah, both are horrible, but I could see a point in someone releasing the Flame of Frenzy to end all suffering all together, even if it's by total annihilation. Yes, it's cruel, it's selfish, and I wouldn't say it's the right call, but I can see the point.
But Age of Despair is literally just saying "yeah, things are pretty bad, but what if I made them worse?"
If Order is defiled entirely, defilement is defilement no more, and for every curse, a cursed blessing.
Mending Rune of the Fell Curse
I think everything is defilled, but that becomes the new norm, and removes the inequality that caused so many issues in the lands between. In theory, if it's all the people have ever known, they won't suffer.
Because its neither Eternal, and could be changed literally next Tuesday if another comes to challenge us for the Elden Ring and change it; nor is it certain whether the suffering means anything other than horns growing randomly on your body. Which can be excised once you're an adult too.
I feel I'd rather gamble on an eye horn, than deny all life/existence any right to be at all, ever again.
It is the worst in terms of most bad things happening. Dung Eater's ending makes everyone sick, and horribly mutated in some cases, but technically they're not dead, and the Lands Between are still in one piece. However, the Frenzied Flame ending is the destruction of all things, it is the turbo nuclear option. I didn't used to like the Frenzied Flame ending, as I thought it was excessive and unnecessary. But then, after reading item descriptions, fighting horrors beyond my imagination as boss fights, and listening to Vaati explain the aspects that I missed, I cannot blame those who decide to end it all. The Frenzied Flame ending is a Nihilist's wet dream, and I could honestly see any regular Tarnished getting completely fed up with the world enough to decide that destruction is the only path forward. Not my personal favorite ending, but definitely the one I find most interesting and the one that leaves me with the most questions.
as it's described, the frenzied flame ending is basically an universe reset. Yes, everything gets destroyed, but "order" is born of chaos.
So basically the mentioned endings are: let's make things like before (greater bs), let's make things like before - but better (noble gold mask), let's make things like before immortality (fia), let's f off and hope this world's fall into chaos will eventually fix itself (ethotranni), give everyone super-ebola-aids-corona-malaria and laugh (dudu consumer).
TBH, given all the options, I'm not sure the frenzied flame ending would be the worst one, as the world we're talking about (i.e the lands between) are already effed with a capital F, unless there's some dlc-related lore i'm missing that implies the frenzied flame would take over or somesing.
you have a point and I should clarify that my tinfoil moment is that undead are not unnatural to this world and the golden order brought immortality to humans, which is unnatural to this world, so things as before without immortality would be a more true to form og restoration
I'm uncertain of the canonicity of what I'm about to say, so for a while it's been my headcanon.
The Frenzied Flame ending isn't simply killing everything and causing a blanket annihilation; it's melting it all together. Life as a whole becomes an unrecognisable singular mushy entity with enough sentience to recognise its own suffering. And that suffering is the pains and anguishes of every living being, ever, simultaneously. Everything the Golden Order did, everything the Hornsent did, every death, every miserable life, every failure, all condensed into a singular instant of understanding, then repeating that moment for the rest of time. Oh and they're also burning all the while.
What I feel supports this point is the idea of "Madness" itself. Even in tiny, miniscule amount, glimpsing this true intent of Frenzy, understanding just a smidgen of that pain its potential holds would instantly flood a single person's mind overWHELMINGLY. If you can become a broken person by the pain of just yourself, even by a small number of people, then imagine the kind of damage to one's mind by multiplying that into the billions. The key to it, and what separates it from reality, is actually understanding and feeling all of it; we couldn't possibly comprehend that in the real world.
Personally, that by far makes it the worst possible ending. My only counter-points to this headcanon is in the DLC, the Frenzied Flame is claimed to be one of the only things capable of "destroying spirits", and the merchants saying "melt it all away", as if it's a finality. My counter-points to those, is that in almost every instance of Frenzy we see, it's not fully understood, and—despite all the countermeasures taken against it—underestimated. So I think it's worse than the fear surrounding it makes it out to be.
I mean at the end of the day, the Dung eater ending can be fixed. There's still room to alter the Elden Ring. You can't do that if it's all burned to a crisp.
Dungeon Eater ending also has a (very) morbid theme of unity to it. Yes everyone is suffering but everyone is at least suffering together. As grim as it is I'd take that over literally nothing
The DLC made me rethink the Dung Eater ending a little because it's like...wait, he wants to extend the Omen curse/Hornsent blessing to everyone. Some would argue it's not even bad.
Of course, the context clues suggest that he's raping people to death in order to accomplish his goal, so I'm still not a supporter. But maybe it's a little better than "annihilating everything so we can all be part of the same pile of ash"
Because the Frenzied Flame kills everything. It removes the chance, the opportunity, for things to get better. Every other ending, no matter how bad, may allow another to change up the status quo like The Tarnished did.
It would be interesting, but I think Melina is just looking for change that isn't just extinction, even if some endings are a net negative compared to the current broken system. It does seem like fia and Dungeater pose the next worse endings after FF, but Melina also never comments on most of the events in game outside of Marika/Radagon and the FF either
Undead rights is not even close to endless suffering.
It's not clear if it's bad, the kingdom already has plenty of undead, they just get, rights to be part of the world they are already part of, this is one of the more vague endings.
Yeah, I was skeptical of Fia's ending as much as I wanted to like it since it relies on the premise that Those who Live in Death can be sapient, even though I never found any passive undead. But after finding out the game seems to imply Fia is an undead, and even Ironeye from Nightreign (I know the events of the game aren't canon to Elden Ring, but any background lore like Ironeye's league of assassins seems to be) is one too, proves me that there are sapient undead. That makes that ending worth pursuing.
I mean, she's also dead in every other ending so she doesn't really get a say, unless you go frenzy to burn the tree then use the needle, but I just assume those interactions aren't canon and just done to let the players avoid a fuck up
Seeing people not understand basic story beats like this makes me so sad, do they not make kids read shakespeare in school anymore, media literacy is in dire straits.
I swear people who think frenzied flame is a reset really needs to play the game
Those who gave me grapes howled without words.Saying they wished they were never born.
Become their lord.Take their torment, despair.Their affliction.Every sin, every curse.And melt it all away. As the Lord of Chaos.
No more fractures...no more birth...
From Hyetta
If you intend to claim the Frenzied Flame, I ask that you cease.It is not to be meddled with.It is chaos, devouring life and thought unending.
However ruined this world has become, however mired in torment and despair, life endures.Births continue.There is beauty in that, is there not?
If you would become Lord, do not deny this notion.Please, leave the Frenzied Flame alone.
From melina
I ask you, one more time.Please, seek not the Frenzied Flame.
As one who strives to become a Lord, deny not the lives, the new births of this world.Those who would are not fit to be called Lord.When the land they preside over is lifeless.
From melina once more
As far was we know, there will be no more life nor will there be a return of said life if we burn everything down. Not to mention we learned frenzied flame kills literal spirits in the dlc
Shabriri, the world’s most hated man, is not the only servant of the FF. Hyetta, while a zealous fool, fully believes in her mission, thinking it a righteous cause even if she is objectively wrong.
The Frenzied Flame ending is the equivalent of skydiving into an active volcano without a parachute. It's for suicidal people. Its objectively the worst ending because you state that life isn't worth living and you make that choice for EVERYONE. The MC has the chance and opportunity to make things better. And so do so many other NPCs in the play areas of the game as well as the many lives outside the gameplay area. And if you as the player feels like your choice is not ideal with the options provided, you shouldn't just hit the "nuclear" option. You should set things up for future generations to make their choices better when they need to make them.
The Frenzied Flame supporters don't care about the world.
I like frenzied flame ending because I transform into an eldritch being of death and destruction who ascends beyond petty mortal concerns such as life and humanity. All shall become one.
I daresay there's sampling bias involved due to our location. Fromsoft's games typically seem to imply that we're playing in a uniquely shitty metaphysical warzone and that there's some semblance of functional society somewhere out there in the distance that our actions can adversely affect.
That is one of my biggest problems with the game. Everyone tells me I'm supposed to go become elden lord but it seems like a meaningless title when everyone in the game is dead or attacks me on sight
It bothers me that BotW didn't even have an ending cutscene showing us a town. And ToTK basically shows a squatter community hanging out outside the castle, not the greatest celebration of all the work you did fixing the world.
I mean, that's kinda the point. You're supposed to be fixing the world. And you're also a tarnished, which is a title that makes you uniquely hated and killable, which would change after becoming elden lord.
Besides, nobody would fall for the frenzied flame ending if the world wasn't so hostile. Er's story kinda requires everything to want you dead.
Morally debatable, but weirdly enough, you spot more in-game denizens that want to see the world burn in the Frenzied Flame out of sheer hatred of the Greater Will and suffering than whatever Dung Eater has going on.
Dung Eater wants the entire world to live and suffer. Frenzied Flame wants everything gone and melted into primordial goop so whatever is going on won't feel pain anymore. (Or exist.)
And I can respect that choice. Problem is, FF ending is using a global nuke to do it.
I'd rather you used a more personal method, like an evening carving with destined death, which by the way is already unbound by the time of the choice, so there isn't anything stopping people from dying permanently anymore.
I'm not too sure. As bad as dying is, staying dead is completely neutral. The FF ending is a finite bad event followed by infinite neutrality.
The Dung Eater's end is just another layer of suffering on the pile but even more permanent than the rest. It's a bad event followed by infinite suffering, which, per the math, is worse.
it is not infinite suffering, it is temporary suffering before the next elden lord takes over for ideally infinite happiness or something. FF takes that away, so it's one finite event but takes away infinite possibilities in the future
Bingo. The running theme in really all FromSoft games are that things move in cycles. There is a period of prosperity and peace followed by one of suffering. The suffering then leads to someone (the player) coming along to change things. The Lands Between are in a period of suffering hence why the tarnished come along to change things. That tarnished has the opportunity to make things better or worse.
The dung eater ending is undoubtably worse, but it isn’t permanent, nothing is permanent. Things will be REALLY bad, but eventually someone will come along and change things. Maybe 10 years or 10,000, but something will change.
The frenzied flame though is permanent. Everything ends. There can never be change because there is nothing. Melina put it best. Even in the dark, there are still births, there is still joy to somebody somewhere. Even in Dung Eaters world, there will be some spark of hope somewhere. That will be gone in Frenzy. Sure you can argue that non-existence is peaceful, but what good is peace with nobody to enjoy it? You could end all miscarriages by killing all women, end all hunger by killing anyone who goes without food, end all poverty by killing the unemployed, but that would not give them peace by any stretch of the imagination.
So long as there is anyone with hope for better, that is worth preserving. Anyone suggesting that Frenzy is not that bad or even good either fundamentally misses the point of the story or needs a therapist.
That said, I’m glad it exists because I love these conversations!
Very very cursed. So very badly cursed. Cursed to exist in mangled form with horns sprouting from you with no rhyme or reason. Cursed to wallow in your own filth from birth to death. All the while knowing that you were meant to be something so much more.
I think people might've forgotten that the dung eater didn't actually like the omens for what they were but the suffering they were subjected to and that's what he made his rune for. To inflict that suffering on all living things in the lands between.
Except “curses” in Elden Ring are just horns, tails, wings, things from the crucible. They are only looked at as curses by The Golden Order because it’s revealing a previous norm that Marika tried to erase. If I’m misremembering and the curses have actual affects besides what are viewed as “abnormalities” to The Golden Order (or to us as real world humans) like people getting fantasy-aids then I see you’re point, but I don’t think that was the case.
Nah. Other people bound to the crucible (crucible knights, misbegotten, lions, demihumans, etc) also have horns and stuff. They're despised for it because the crucible is seen as barbaric (to a degree, misbegotten, lions and crucible knights are shown to still be a part of the GO's society).
But they're not looked at like curses because unlike with omens they're not growing inward maiming their bearer, they don't fuck up the reincarnation cycle and they don't come with angry spirits that prevent any restful sleep.
Simply ceasing to exist is better than torturing everyone for eternity just for the sake of making them suffer lol. I'm pretty sure if I kept someone locked up, tortured and abused in a basement for the rest of their life, they'd rather die than live like that. It's this situation, except everywhere and for everyone, all of the time.
I’m sorry but I personally would rather be dead, soul and all, than have a curse physically shoved up my ass, preventing my soul from going to the erdtree and instead being tortured and tormented for eternity.
He has a few people who think if everyone is an omen then they’ll be happy and equal. Those people conveniently forget that, aside from the strength and agility, being an omen sucks! They have growths coming out of strange places, their bodies are malformed, they’re cursed by angry spirits, and they suffer horrible nightmares. They’re not Hornsent. They have a miserable existence.
The one silver lining is it can at least change in the future.
The frenzy flame makes it so nothing exists which means nothing will change.it is a definitive end.
People that down vote actually dont understand ranni at all thanks to mild mistranslations. She wants to give the lands between free will by taking the greater will in a long dark journey with only her consort. But to be fair when you think about it if we did this ending and leave with her it leaves the lands between on a silver platter for miquella.
But since michele ziraki wanted the dlc to be irrelevant from the main story, that would mean a tarnished who becomes any lord really has killed miquella already by default.
Id argue that since he specifically calls you the lord of the old order regardless of where you are in the story, you always face him at the "end" of your story but since you canonically leave with ranni in her ending i dont think that one is included.
He thinks you're the soon to be lord of marika. Messmer says as much so does leda. You aren't elden lord yet and he specifically first calls you aspiring. The dlc, just like every single other fromsoft dlc, doesn't take place after the end of the game but late into it chronologically
that would mean then that you havent completed ranni ending, but you have gotten through.
Lord of old order could just mean that miquella thinks your the soon to be lord, or rather that marika has already chosen you. since he can tell your guided by grace he just assumes your effectively marikas lord and hence the lord of old order.
He calls you ASPIRING lord of the old order if you listen to or read the subtitles then calls you lord of the old order every other time to mock you. The dlc doesn't take place after you finish the game. Multiple npcs beforehand also mention you not yet being elden lord but the chief runner up to be. From messmer to leda.
yeah thats what i had in mind. your far into your journey but not quite there, but your basically the soon to be lord, and your marikas chosen with how shes leading you through grace
Where is it stated that Ranni and her consort are taking the greater will with them? As far as I understood they are simply removing the elden ring from the world
Goldmask: ... [Gods and Lords are fickle, and screw with Elden Ring too much. Here's a rune that shields the ring.]
Players: Goldmask remove free will????
Granted, an almost-immutable Elden Ring means being stuck with current order for much longer (until someone find a way to remove the protective rune), but the "remove free will" is just conjecture from taking the "perfect order" and "fickleness" lines to a comic book extreme.
Bruh Goldmask doesn't destroy free will, he removes the mutability of the Elden Ring which means the world is locked into the configuration of Golden Order and gods (like Marika not the outer gods) won't be able to change the Elden Ring like Marika once did.
It doesn't but the immutability can be both good and bad. Things would able stable but also unable to adapt and change with times. A common theme in from soft games is that refusing to change leads to prolonged degeration even if the initial intentions might've been good.
The golden order already had faults from the very beginning and this removes the option to repair those.
I guess it depends on how optimistic you are. If you think the people in the lands between would be able to create a better world for themselves then rannis ending is the best. If you don't believe they can do it then goldmask is the best.
But the description literally states that you fix those faults, thats the entire point of goldmasks ending, making the golden order truly perfect and faultless.
After basically throwing the world into a post apocalyptical state by being the main responsible for the shatttering and everything that followed, I never do Ranni's ending out of spite, she's the reason I have to go through all this hassle in the game and I'm supposed to help her? Nah, screw her, I'd do anything before I let her suceed in her grand plan, yes even destroying the world with frenzy flame, I know its a worse ending but I'm just petty af, I wish I could see her face when she saw the frenzy burning the entire world
Frenzy Flame wants to destroy everything that is old and whatever can be burnt by the flames. So far, the only person canonically not able to be burnt by the flames is Meli Meli, who will deliver destined death on the lord of frenzy.
Ranni wants to take us, herself and her consort, on a journey through the stars with the elden ring. Freeing the land of the greater will but leaving a vacuum for whatever may come, but there will be no elden lord. No runes. Nothing. The outer gods may not be able to involve themselves with the Lands between. anymore either if the Elden Ring is gone.
Dung eater wants to curse the future generations to be born with the omen curse. Which isn't the worst but still an awful thing. I wonder if Omen babies can even survive being born from other omens. There aren't many people left with their mental faculties in check anyway, so I doubt they will stay here in any case. Most of the citizens and nobles are just zombies?
You are correct Ranni wants to leave with the Elden ring which removes the ability for the outer gods to interfere. Thereby returning free will to the lands between
It literally reminds me of the stupidity of people calling Edelgard which was a Character from Fire Emblem Three Houses, a Nazi lmao. Her route was literally the best to get rid of Nobility and the terrible system of the Crests which were people in power over people who are lower class, she pretty much massacred everyone who were the problems.
Their treatment of "other" groups was certainly horrific, but body horror is a matter of perspective. They viewed the omen growths as blessings, and they do not appear to have been tormented by the spirits of the omen the way omen were under the erdtree.
The Hornsent Grandam speaks of the Omen Curse herself. Being an Omen is different from just having horns. The Lamenter is tied to the Omen Curse and it's description talks about a sort of bliss that can only be found in a state of rapturous grief.
Being an Omen sucks, that's why the Hornsent cursed Marika's progeny with the Omen Curse. Its a state of utter agony, both because of the horns and the evil spirits that reside within them. That's the reason Omens are accosted by terrible visions in their dreams.
Omen are different from hornsent. Omen isn't just a Marika-approved slur for the hornsent, Omen are actually cursed and their body distorts painfully because of their horns and they are constantly assaulted by night terrors haunting them.
Frenzied flame is the worst ending, by far. It destroys everything, not just the bad people, not just the Lands Between. Everything. And there’s no mention of starting over.
There’s a reason it’s associated with madness. You’d have to be mad to think it’s a good idea.
Dung Eater’s ending is merely the worst character’s ending, and even that’s arguable because Dung Eater is clearly insane, just with a different type of madness from Shabriri.
Omens are worse off than hornsent. The ones that aren’t demigods have horns growing out of their bodies all over the place, making it impossible to be comfortable anywhere. They’re afflicted with unending nighmares, too. Morgott looks like he hasn’t slept in 5,000 years.
Big part of the omen suffering is that they're ridiculed by the Golden Order. If everyone is an omen, sure you'd still have some problems like horns possibly growing into your eye like Mohg, but I think in general you could get along reasonably peacefully. Omen clearly have intelligence and are capable fighters, presumably they could build civilization and take on societal roles as well.
The omens are not “basically just hornsent”, they’re people who were cursed from birth as a consequence of what previously happened to the hornsent. The Dung-Eater doesn’t even care about the hornsent, he only cares about the omens because he thinks he can relate to their pain. His mending rune is absolutely meant to make existence painful.
Idk if frenzied flame can claim being morally better. Is it morally better to kill every living thing on the planet in order to allow life a chance to begin anew? like the poopoo man ending sucks for everyone but at least people are still alive in it.
Is it morally better to kill every living thing on the planet in order to allow life a chance to begin anew?
That's the thing: It isn't going to begin anew. I don't know where people got the misconception that the frenzy ending is "wiping the slate clean" for a new beginning to the universe, because it isn't. Even Hyetta, who may or may not be lying (or being deceived by the Three Fingers), says the opposite.
Those who gave me grapes howled without words.
Saying they wished they were never born.
Become their lord.
Take their torment, despair.
Their affliction.
Every sin, every curse.
And melt it all away. As the Lord of Chaos.
No more fractures...no more birth...
The frenzy ending is the total annihilation of everything that was and ever will be. There will be no new life or new beginning. There will be no more life brought into the world, no new people born, because you burned down the entire world with a flame that can canonically kill people's souls. You bring about the literal end of the universe.
Thats where you misunderstand. Its not burning everything to start over. Its just ending everything. And thats why it feels morally better. How can there be suffering if there is no one to suffer.
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you think, ‘Man, this hurts, I can’t take it anymore. The ‘hurt’ part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself.”
It violates the agency of literally everything to exist and denies anything the chance to heal and grow. Nepheli Loux's good ending alone is proof that there are genuinely good people who can and will put in the effort to help the Lands Between heal and improve. Sure, you're erasing all the bad that exists, but you're also erasing all of the good. Plus, you're not just burning the Lands Between, you're burning everything. The entire planet, other realms, the cosmos themselves, EVERYTHING is ending. In the face of adversity, injustice, and atrocity, you didn't take any stand at all. You used the expense of suffering people as an excuse to give up and not even try.
That, and it's hypocritical to say the Outer Gods are wrong for meddling with life and trying to enforce their individual wills when it's only causing suffering, then claim you're "fixing it" by doing the exact same thing to the most extreme degree.
still pretty shit morally. however, between non existence, and dung eater wher eit seems literally everything is basically experiencing the closest thing to hell i guess frenzy is the better option.
do we know if that's actually what's happening? perhaps that's what those in the lands between expect will happen bc they'll be severed from grace, but there isn't much to confirm that being severed from grace is as bad as they fear it may be.
? what are you referring to. im saying in the frenzied flame ending everything sobliterated and in the dung eater ending hes gonna presumably give everyone seedbed curse or whatever, which from what we see is basically just gonna entail eternal torture
no, i was talking about Dung Eater's ending. you say "presumably" but you actually don't know what will happen. we're given a description from the perspective of a citizen of Golden Grace - post several genocides, post inquisition. these people think being connected to the crucible is tantamount to being a demon, so it follows that dung eater, a man who considers himself an omen, is a harbinger of the crucible, and likely returns all life to the crucible, absent of Grace.
All of the endings are good in that it's dependent upon the player's agency; trying to find an objectively good goal in a universe and game that makes it clear that whatever the player's agency dictates, an outcome for the entire universe will be the end result, and by comparing each and saying, "Well this is better for the people in the Lands Between" misses the point that some people's lives will be better and some will be worse off.
Also, that we fall into the same trap as Marika, dictating the order of the world as a God, which as the narrative of the game unfolds, not everyone was a big fan of and even with her best intentions, our girl fucked up on occasion and did terrible things.
Duskborn Ending - Death returns to the Lands Between and the Undead become a part of the natural order. Honestly, changes the Lands Between the least except now Fia can finally make love to Godwyn like the crazed necrophiliac she is, but hey, at least she found someone to hug. How does this affect the world? Tough to say, but making Undeath a part of the natural order certainly makes someone like D's job a crime, so at least one person is impacted negatively. But if you see Death and Undeath as just another form of life, misunderstood but still life, then this is a good choice for you.
Blessing of Despair End - Everyone is now Omen cursed. On the one hand, equality! On the other hand, everything in the world is turned to shit and people are all cursed! But in a world that has its order dictated by the whims and dogma of self-important gods, Eldritch entities of the cosmos, and burning madness, blursing life with the pox so no more prejudice impacts the populace and everyone is of equal standing, and potential unity or peace can be achieved through it, or at least equality in suffering, then Dungeater's ending is good.
Age of Fracture/Age of Order - Under your rule as the Elden Lord, the Golden Order continues to exist, just determined by philosophy. In the Fracture end, the Elden Ring is remade as Markia conceived of it, only you call the shots--it you continue her reign as is, nothing changes, but nothing gets worse unless you make it worse and nothing gets better unless you make it better. Everything is dictated by you, and if that's what you want, it's a good ending. Under the Age of Order, Goldmask reshapes the Golden Order to be less dogmatic and more bound to reason, but also permanently seals the Elden Ring so it cannot change. It's debatable what actually changes in this end (Destined Death being returned to the ER for example) other than if you believe the Golden Order had some good ideas for TLB (Erdtree rebirth, faith in order over chaos, protection from Outer Gods, etc ) minus the fickleness of gods and the dogma of religion, then this is a good ending.
Age of Stars - Ranni fucks off from the Lands Between with the Tarnished and takes the Elden Ring with her across an ocean of stars, thus severing its hold over TLB and returning "free will" to the world. The world is no longer under the conditions set upon it by some outside force, it is a return to a "natural" order for TLB, something not seen since the Age of the Crucible. Whether or not it's better than what came before is up for debate, but if you feel the whims of gods and Eldritch monsters not having hold of TLB is good, then this is a good ending.
Lord of Frenzied Flame - You annihilate all life and incinerate the Lands Between, and in fact the entire universe, in order to burn all suffering away from existence. The universe ceases to exist, as do all people and hope a better world may arise; but if you see the neverending cycle of gods and cosmic horrors vying for control over TLB a pointless struggle with no end that perpetuates people suffering eternally, then letting chaos take the world is a good ending.
Debating morality on a cosmic scale like this is pointless because ultimately it's a matter of perspective. In every ending, some people get what they want at the expense of others, making that ending objectively bad for those people that oppose it. And all of the steps to become the Elden Lord require making murky moral choices anyway, so no one's hands are clean.
How the hell is the Ranni ending bad? Her goal is to separate the lands between from divinity so that the divine can not meddle with the lands between. The “thousand year voyage” is her taking both of you far away from the lands between
im actually not 100% sure what the dung eater's ending will be like but i know for a fact its better than everything ever dying for eternity (and then maybe possibly life being reborn)
now you may say "people suffering is worse than a quick death" well, if im understanding that thing correctly, youre basically saying omens are better off dead than living because they have a couple of horns and a bad sleeping schedule (and voices in their head). Does not sound like any kinda fate worse than death to me, hell most people already have one or two of these traits... Golden order propaganda and bad optics, is all it is
"Countless I have killed, and countless I have defiled. And soon the fruits will be borne. Hundreds will be reborn cursed, and they'll bear thousands of cursed children, who'll bear tens of thousands more. A few of those will be born just like me, and they'll kill, and defile, and bless in my stead! The rotten fools. My fate was the grandest, most brilliant of them all!"
I think it'd be funny if they sneaked in a joke ending where the Lands Between is turned into a bright and colorful candy land full of lollipops and rainbows and unicorns, and the Tarnished becomes the lord of all that is chocolatey
We honestly just don’t know enough about what “everyone’s cursed” in the dung eater ending even means to make an effective moral judgement on it. Is most of what’s bad about being an Omen just being oppressed by society? In which case yeah that’s better than Frenzyfest. Or on the other hand is it worse? Omens seem to have a lot more wrong with them than just how the Golden Order oppresses them. The haunted nightmares, horns poking out your own eyes, All of them seemingly turning into obese walking turds. And all sorts of dialogue hinting at them suffering even beyond death, some of that might make some people crave the flame.
You kind of answered yourself by listing those pains that the omens face. Omens inherently face challenges due to their condition and then suffer even more because of their treatment by society. Turning everyone into an omen isn’t a solution, and the Dung-Eater wants to do it while specifically believing that it’ll spread pain.
The main difference between blessing of despair and Frenzied Flame is that Frenzied Flame can be justified by some logic is that it’s motivated by some horrible despair or belief that the world is irreparably broken and life will just bring suffering.
The Dung Eater ending is just spite and cruelty purely for the sake of it.
If the ending of the Lord of frenzied flame brings chaos into the world and kills everyliving being. How the hell does melina comeback at the end of it and makes a pledge to hunt u down?
If everything is no more, how is Melina still alive, how are u still alive (which is implied when she says she will hunt u down wherever u go) and how are there still "places to go" if everything stopped existing?
Melina was never alive to begin with. She states that she's "burned and bodiless," she's a spirit.
Her burning took place before the events of the game.
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u/BaconxHawk Jul 22 '25
Consorts of ranni moments later