The Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree trailer is here, and with it comes rampant speculation on the gameplay, the setting.. and the juicy juicy lore implications. The highlight of the trailer is the mysterious Messmer. This red-haired enigma has us all full of questions. Who is he? How does he relate to the dysfunctional extended demigod family we know/love/murder, and what does he want?
This is what I’m here to look into.
The Catacombs Theory Is Wrong (Sorry!)
There are a few clues. In the dialogue we do get from the trailer, he says ‘Mother, wouldst thou truly Lordship sanction in one so bereft of light?’ As far as we know, there’s only one individual sanctioning Lordship, and that’s Queen Marika.
The official statue refers to him as ‘Messmer the Impaler’. This drove some lore hunters to look into the Impaler’s Catacombs on the Weeping Peninsula, and a few have attributed that a ghost there talks about ‘Marika’s unwanted child’. While this sounds like a big breakthrough it’s… sadly not true.
While there’s a ghost that does say this, he’s actually at the Church Of Pilgrimage, on the other side of the Weeping Peninsula, and this refers to the soulless demigod within the Walking Mausoleum.
I checked.
In truth the Impaler’s Catacombs doesn’t have much to offer in terms of lore. The most you’ll learn about impalers is getting stuck on the spikes peppering the area.
The Secrets Of The Snakes
So with that lead dead for now, what can we tell from the trailer?
We can see his strange ties to snakes. He has a snake on his shoulder. Is it a tie to Rykard and the god-eating serpent? Or a very scaly version of Godfrey’s beast-grafting? There’s even a snake on his helmet. According to the Gladiator Helm item description:
“The snake is viewed as a traitor to the Erdtree, and the audience delighted in seeing these bronze effigies beaten and battered.”
We’ve always assumed that the hatred of snakes is due to the God-Devouring Serpent, but perhaps there’s another reason? Perhaps a literal traitor to the Erdtree with the snake as his symbol and shadow?
The Fire Color Is So Important
We can also see him summoning fire. That might not seem like a big point to a casual observer, but there are lots of different kinda of fire in the Lands Between.
The fire he summons is too red for the yellow flame of chaos. Is it the red flame of the fire giants that could burn the Erdtree? Or, is it the Bloodflame gifted by Mohg, the Lord Of Blood on his trusted servants?
If it is Bloodflame, and my time spent staring at the Mohg and Fire Giant boss fights has me leaning towards Bloodflame. If so, and Messmer is tied to Mohg, and the Formless Mother, then perhaps he had something to do with Miquella’s current situation in the first place.
That’s it. That’s my best prediction. Messmer is behind it all. A traitor to the Erdtree and the reason Mohg stole Miquella and doomed the Haligtree.
Quite possible that the wheels fall off my grand theory with the arrival of DLC itself, or a better lore dive, but that’s the fun of lore hunting, isn’t it?
Now for something completely different, check out our feature on Love And Deepspace.
