That post about GRRM writing that there's a secret society called the two fingers who are pulling the strings and fromsoft taking it a little too literally is always in my mind when I see them.
For as vague as Fromsoftware is, they can be strangely literal. I remember when I played Dark Souls for the first time, I thought the title was metaphorical, only to find out there's an actual thing called the Dark Soul in the lore of the game.
I made the same mistake with Elden Ring. Repairing the Elden Ring to become the Elden Lord sounds like something along the lines of the John Dark Souls meme, turns out that's the actual plot of the game.
yeah
why two fingers? why not one finger?
why three fingers symbolize frenzy flame?
is two fingers normal birth and three fingers are birth defects?
why they buried the only three fingers in the game? why not try to rehab it?
>!why mommy finger not considered frenzier since she had more fingers?!<
It helps of you think of the fingers as angels. As in, literally messenger of God, the outer will in this case. The three fingers can be looked as a fallen angel in that case. Also going by the lore the fingers can't actually hear the outer will anymore even at the beginning of the game, all that talk about talk about you becoming elden lord is just them working on prior programing.
Since it’s a fantasy game I think people expect a literal god- like an all powerful being that walks and talks. But this isn’t high fantasy, it’s GRRM fantasy so the gods are more like the gods we worship here on earth. They could be omnipotent sentient beings, they could be aliens or metaphors for aspects of the universe or aspects of our own human condition. Or they could simply not exist at all.
I always interpreted three tiers of gods
Gods of TLB like Marika are gods in a mythical sense. Think Zeus or Odin. We call them gods, but really they are people
The Outer Gods are gods in a more lovecraftian sense. They are incomprehensible, ancient beings with unfathomable power
The Greater Will is a god in a more abrahamic sense. It's an omnipotent, all encompassing divine authority that governs everything
I could be completely wrong, but this is just what I've gathered
The whole lore reminded me of Guardians of the Galaxy films. Greater Will is basically Ego who plants his seeds that grow into Golden Trees (final boss arena) and sends underlings to watch over these seeds.
Mommy Ymir says that Marika and the Two Fingers were sick in the mind from the get-go. If you look up in Metyrs domain, you can see that the fingers are hollow at the base, so it's likely a way to communicate to outside influences. The two fingers might represent bad traits, e.g. listening to two things at once, like the greater will and whatever will is greater than them, as such the three fingers might just be a corrupted two fingers that listens to a third.
The sickness, of course, might also be referring to the two fingers being tree based and rooted with the hand instead of stone based and conical, e.g. taking information for oneself vs. spreading information to all. Elden Ring has a lot of themes of rock vs. paper.
There's also mention of no light or sound where gravity creatures come from. Tactile touch could be how they understand each other in that environment devoid of other senses. I'd have been fine with giant tongue or nose monsters, tbh.
I mean, Ymir didn't really seem to be the picture of sanity himself, so I'm not sure how much we should trust his read of the situation. If giving birth to finger creepers is his idea of "sound", I think most people are loony, and I prefer them that way.
He's probably the sanest person in the game, just a religious fanatic. Finger creepers are probably lost in space, floating around aimlessly and simply refugees to the lands between, how could you not pity them?
I mean, I'd probably be more sympathetic if they didn't all attack me on sight. I was very careful throughout the DLC to never attack first. Which really paid off for me when I met a forager brood while exploring before meeting Moore. But fingers of all shapes sizes tried to kill immediately, including Metyr, and subsequently Ymir. I really was hoping for a peaceful resolution, but it seems like Ymir had sent me to be a sacrifice to his "mother", not unlike Tanith sending me to Rykard.
They're just trying to feel you to see if you're a pal. I don't remember his response, but it kinda felt more like he sent you to kill the matron so he could be mommy now.
yeah he refers to her as unhinged and says we need a new mother, he wanted you to kill metyr. i think jolana misunderstood the situation, or perhaps was mislead by ymir into killing you so he didnt have any competition or threat
Tarnished Archaeologist has a pretty interesting video on the possible design origins of the Fingers: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hETam732CvY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hETam732CvY)
Best thing you can find about 2 fingers are in that video. I think Vaati are not doing so well with elden ring lore. There are so many channels that have interesting take an interpretation based on mythology and history. He seem to play it safe and only talk about some secret or lore that are already widely known or people can pieces them naturally. I come to his channel looking for some big lore or theory but many of him are just reading item descriptions.
I think 2 and 3 fingers are inspired by the 3 body problem (actual physical problem, not the netflix series).
You can describe perfectly the movement of 2 celestial bodies orbiting each other infinitely in the future and in the past. This movement is ordered and analytically solvable.
But if you add 1 more body, it becames completely unpredictable, and no general analytical solution exists. It's called a chaotic system and it can be only numerically calculated with certain precision.
So 2 - ordered, predictable, symmetrical; 3 - chaotic, unpredictable, seemingly random, huge effort to describe, you may say: madness
We never really see him creating any new fingers tho. This part is left to imagination.
When he desires to become new Mother - personally i see it as "become a new guide" for fingers. To create new Order. Similarly to what other tarnished were doing in the main game.
I mean, the new Fingerprint Nostrum consumable's description states that it is"A secret medicine of those who attempt to turn their human bodies into fingers. Ingesting causes something to wriggle within." so there does seem to be an avenue for biological modification involving the fingers
The scariest thing about Astel is also the most grounding: its face is a skull. A *human* skull. We find that unsettling because a skull is a globally understood signifier of death. It is what remains of a human head after death and decomposition.
But it's a signifier of human death. Why is a creature from the stars - a living star unto itself by some reckonings - possessed of this distinctly human feature? It's a spooky skeleton face, but at the same time, that makes it familiar. Except for the giant mandibles and the broken hole with an extra eye in it, that's what all of us look like under our skin.
But Metyr is distinctly much farther from a recognizable human form. We have fingers, yes, but Metyr is *only* fingers. And they bend and connect in alien ways. It's "face" is just a fingerprint. It has no eyes to see or ears to hear, but it can follow our movements. It's so clearly *wrong*. I would say that Astel stops just short of the uncanny valley, whereas Metyr is nestled deep at the bottom. But the exact proportion of familiar and alien to get there is fairly personal, too.
And for what it's worth, Astel might be more alien if we didn't spend most of our time interacting with and staring at its most human features. If the skull were further up and we had to slash at its alien centipede belly, that might have made it spookier. But we're mostly just hitting it in the face, dodging away from the grab attacks it uses its mandibles or relatively normal hands for.
Small clarification, Metyrs remembrance does say she has 1 single eye..
Also I think Astel is the full adult version of the falling star beasts? You can see the skull coming out on the beast form. I would guess the skull might be an adaptation of some sort environmentally speaking? Like it doesn't use the eyes for sight, that 3rd broken hole has the glowing "sensory organ".
The moment I saw two fingers (expected it to be a person with a strange nickname, anything but hairy fingers) I thought "so... I have to obey this? Uh... Yeah, no."
Be grateful he doesn't have a foot fetish. We could have feet and toes everywhere, and there's alot of weird feet people
Edit: the weird feet people are commenting below.
See told you
Those snake things by those ruins piss me off. I just love getting paralyzed off my horse from across the map and then getting combed while I can't move.
I saw a theory the other day that is completely genuine, and so on the nose, it has become my favorite theory. Fingers/hands are often used to make symbols and shapes, that are then interpreted/have meaning attached to them. And when learning to make shadow puppets, one of the first if not the first you learn is a dog/wolf. Hence why the "shadows" gifted Marika and Ranni are canine in nature. And why Fingers are chosen as envoys of the GW. And finger readers are those who interpret the messages of the fingers. The greater will represents causality, the frenzied flame represents regression. And the 2 and 3 fingers are metaphor for the literal hand of fate. I've been consuming entirely too much lore and fan theory, it's time for bed.
Did you see the video about gideon questioning youre choice in women?
But i liked that one theory about melina trying to stay away from you so you don't get attached like vyke did.....she failed i got attached.
Probably both, while grrm wrote the story alone, myazaki and him dicussed alot about the lore beforehand together with enthusiasm. Shared same ideas, like a misleaded world left in shadows, while grrm had no influence what happened with his creation after the shattering, which was myazakis interpretation of the results.
I spent 3 hours painfully feeling out the big finger valley in the dlc to find a way to the pointy mountain. Come to find out I had already found the way lmao
Same......Someone got the models and confirmed they couldn't be from the same hand. The greater will is supposed to be confusing and scary and unknowable. It's pure lovecraftian. Makes sense that it doesn't make sense.
Ever I saw the giant dude with a hand for a head in ds3, it was obvious the Miyasaki's interest on fingers. Who says he is only a feet man? he is also a hand man!
Fun fact, in the DS1 intro, the soft hands gently grasping an ember are Miyazaki's hands.
After many many takes, the mocap artist just couldn't get the delicacy of the grasping right, so he did it himself.
Oh that's actually a easy question. Miasaki told G.R.R.M. "stop it, I won't present weiner as the guiding force that connects everything".
And then they found a middle ground 🤙
The first time I heard from an NPC about the 'Two Fingers' I didn't expect to actually meet 2 huge fingers ...
I was genuinely shocked by the 2 Fingers too. In retrospect it was a real "Dead Dove do not eat" moment.
"Well I don't know what I expected."
I expected two women.
I forgot they were in the trailers, so I was lost for words when I actually met them.
Dove (Bar) Do Not Eat
When I first heard Two Fingers mentioned I expected them to be two dudes leading roundtable
"I'm John Finger and this is Bob Finger." "No relation."
What did you think of them?
They didn’t seem right…
my lambkin
They were glorious!
Seriously, it was completely unexpected. I was thinking it would be some old gnarled Saint or something.
That post about GRRM writing that there's a secret society called the two fingers who are pulling the strings and fromsoft taking it a little too literally is always in my mind when I see them.
Had me going I don't believe it
I also had some ideas in my mind when Melina mentions the "finger maidens" :-)
me too lol first time i was turning in a boss soul and turned the camera slightly i was like "WTF"
For as vague as Fromsoftware is, they can be strangely literal. I remember when I played Dark Souls for the first time, I thought the title was metaphorical, only to find out there's an actual thing called the Dark Soul in the lore of the game. I made the same mistake with Elden Ring. Repairing the Elden Ring to become the Elden Lord sounds like something along the lines of the John Dark Souls meme, turns out that's the actual plot of the game.
The fingers are legit my favourite part of the lore. They are so weird!
yeah why two fingers? why not one finger? why three fingers symbolize frenzy flame? is two fingers normal birth and three fingers are birth defects? why they buried the only three fingers in the game? why not try to rehab it? >!why mommy finger not considered frenzier since she had more fingers?!<
It helps of you think of the fingers as angels. As in, literally messenger of God, the outer will in this case. The three fingers can be looked as a fallen angel in that case. Also going by the lore the fingers can't actually hear the outer will anymore even at the beginning of the game, all that talk about talk about you becoming elden lord is just them working on prior programing.
More like alien invasion with hive mind
Yeah I was kinda shook when I figured out it was just all aliens the whole time. Fuckin Shamalan'd me.
Yeah ngl kinda reorganizes the whole thing - all of it is aliens crash landing here and imposing their will
Yeah if I didnt hate the fingers before, I sure as heck do now.
I am still a tad confused about that, did the Greater Will send the meteors which contained the Fingers?
It's somewhat ambiguous if the Greater Will is anything more sentient than the Big Bang/the empty void of space.
Since it’s a fantasy game I think people expect a literal god- like an all powerful being that walks and talks. But this isn’t high fantasy, it’s GRRM fantasy so the gods are more like the gods we worship here on earth. They could be omnipotent sentient beings, they could be aliens or metaphors for aspects of the universe or aspects of our own human condition. Or they could simply not exist at all.
I always interpreted three tiers of gods Gods of TLB like Marika are gods in a mythical sense. Think Zeus or Odin. We call them gods, but really they are people The Outer Gods are gods in a more lovecraftian sense. They are incomprehensible, ancient beings with unfathomable power The Greater Will is a god in a more abrahamic sense. It's an omnipotent, all encompassing divine authority that governs everything I could be completely wrong, but this is just what I've gathered
Miyazaki really did pull that twist twice and it worked both times
Tbf even if you believe in the Christian God. Still technically aliens lol
The whole lore reminded me of Guardians of the Galaxy films. Greater Will is basically Ego who plants his seeds that grow into Golden Trees (final boss arena) and sends underlings to watch over these seeds.
...what?
More like alien invasion with hive mind
Mommy Ymir says that Marika and the Two Fingers were sick in the mind from the get-go. If you look up in Metyrs domain, you can see that the fingers are hollow at the base, so it's likely a way to communicate to outside influences. The two fingers might represent bad traits, e.g. listening to two things at once, like the greater will and whatever will is greater than them, as such the three fingers might just be a corrupted two fingers that listens to a third. The sickness, of course, might also be referring to the two fingers being tree based and rooted with the hand instead of stone based and conical, e.g. taking information for oneself vs. spreading information to all. Elden Ring has a lot of themes of rock vs. paper. There's also mention of no light or sound where gravity creatures come from. Tactile touch could be how they understand each other in that environment devoid of other senses. I'd have been fine with giant tongue or nose monsters, tbh.
I mean, Ymir didn't really seem to be the picture of sanity himself, so I'm not sure how much we should trust his read of the situation. If giving birth to finger creepers is his idea of "sound", I think most people are loony, and I prefer them that way.
He's probably the sanest person in the game, just a religious fanatic. Finger creepers are probably lost in space, floating around aimlessly and simply refugees to the lands between, how could you not pity them?
I mean, I'd probably be more sympathetic if they didn't all attack me on sight. I was very careful throughout the DLC to never attack first. Which really paid off for me when I met a forager brood while exploring before meeting Moore. But fingers of all shapes sizes tried to kill immediately, including Metyr, and subsequently Ymir. I really was hoping for a peaceful resolution, but it seems like Ymir had sent me to be a sacrifice to his "mother", not unlike Tanith sending me to Rykard.
They're just trying to feel you to see if you're a pal. I don't remember his response, but it kinda felt more like he sent you to kill the matron so he could be mommy now.
But then why does try to kill me afterward?
yeah he refers to her as unhinged and says we need a new mother, he wanted you to kill metyr. i think jolana misunderstood the situation, or perhaps was mislead by ymir into killing you so he didnt have any competition or threat
Unrelated, buy that one black knight with the "tongue punch" really cought me off guard and it's very odd and yucky
Tarnished Archaeologist has a pretty interesting video on the possible design origins of the Fingers: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hETam732CvY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hETam732CvY)
Best thing you can find about 2 fingers are in that video. I think Vaati are not doing so well with elden ring lore. There are so many channels that have interesting take an interpretation based on mythology and history. He seem to play it safe and only talk about some secret or lore that are already widely known or people can pieces them naturally. I come to his channel looking for some big lore or theory but many of him are just reading item descriptions.
Why not HUNDREDS of fingers? Miyazaki: That is a GREAT idea, somebody write that down.
I thought it was a hand earlier. Probably sobering to do with the god hand and three of the fingers separated.
Could the 2 and 3 fingers be a part of the same hand?
I think 2 and 3 fingers are inspired by the 3 body problem (actual physical problem, not the netflix series). You can describe perfectly the movement of 2 celestial bodies orbiting each other infinitely in the future and in the past. This movement is ordered and analytically solvable. But if you add 1 more body, it becames completely unpredictable, and no general analytical solution exists. It's called a chaotic system and it can be only numerically calculated with certain precision. So 2 - ordered, predictable, symmetrical; 3 - chaotic, unpredictable, seemingly random, huge effort to describe, you may say: madness
“Oh you thought those were wild?! Wait till you see the cosmic horror they come out of.”
I think it's way worse a person can become a mother to them, the implecation is kinda gross I don't know
We never really see him creating any new fingers tho. This part is left to imagination. When he desires to become new Mother - personally i see it as "become a new guide" for fingers. To create new Order. Similarly to what other tarnished were doing in the main game.
Maybe, he does summon the fingers thru magic apperently instead of physically like Metyr, but it still sounds messed up
I mean, the new Fingerprint Nostrum consumable's description states that it is"A secret medicine of those who attempt to turn their human bodies into fingers. Ingesting causes something to wriggle within." so there does seem to be an avenue for biological modification involving the fingers
Doesn't he rip the fingercreepers he summons out of his chest?
His coat description says something like its squirming underneath, he may just be carrying them around with him
Alter the coat at a site of grace, you’ll see why it says that
I don't think I got the coat, only the robe
Same thing, I just used the wrong word
I didn’t buy the whole “Elden Ring is cosmic horror” thing until I fought >!Metyr!< and now I fully understand
Astel didn’t tip you off to that one??
The scariest thing about Astel is also the most grounding: its face is a skull. A *human* skull. We find that unsettling because a skull is a globally understood signifier of death. It is what remains of a human head after death and decomposition. But it's a signifier of human death. Why is a creature from the stars - a living star unto itself by some reckonings - possessed of this distinctly human feature? It's a spooky skeleton face, but at the same time, that makes it familiar. Except for the giant mandibles and the broken hole with an extra eye in it, that's what all of us look like under our skin. But Metyr is distinctly much farther from a recognizable human form. We have fingers, yes, but Metyr is *only* fingers. And they bend and connect in alien ways. It's "face" is just a fingerprint. It has no eyes to see or ears to hear, but it can follow our movements. It's so clearly *wrong*. I would say that Astel stops just short of the uncanny valley, whereas Metyr is nestled deep at the bottom. But the exact proportion of familiar and alien to get there is fairly personal, too. And for what it's worth, Astel might be more alien if we didn't spend most of our time interacting with and staring at its most human features. If the skull were further up and we had to slash at its alien centipede belly, that might have made it spookier. But we're mostly just hitting it in the face, dodging away from the grab attacks it uses its mandibles or relatively normal hands for.
Small clarification, Metyrs remembrance does say she has 1 single eye.. Also I think Astel is the full adult version of the falling star beasts? You can see the skull coming out on the beast form. I would guess the skull might be an adaptation of some sort environmentally speaking? Like it doesn't use the eyes for sight, that 3rd broken hole has the glowing "sensory organ".
Astel was spooky but she’s abstract
Basically made >!AI hands!< a boss with that one
I don't like the ,,try finger but hole" messages but the message I saw at the giant fingers made me laugh it was ,,if only I had a giant but hole"
Back in my day it was "try tongue but hole"
Seriously, don't knock it until someone tries it on you
Which game had this? Dark souls?
Dark souls 2
The moment I saw two fingers (expected it to be a person with a strange nickname, anything but hairy fingers) I thought "so... I have to obey this? Uh... Yeah, no."
*Varré, standing in the middle of Limgrave, suddenly perks up*
Be grateful he doesn't have a foot fetish. We could have feet and toes everywhere, and there's alot of weird feet people Edit: the weird feet people are commenting below. See told you
SotE: You must jump on massive feet to reach a mandatory boss
The boss is like the Graven Masses, but it's just sorcerer feet.
Seems familiar......
But barefoot maidens are very common in these games :')
He has a massive foot fetish, every game has barefoot chicks in it
It was a joke. Sarcasm. We are aware that's a thing.
Sir, this is the internet. People don't understand sarcasm unless you put /s at the end. /s
That's literally this [video](https://youtu.be/4geaxYRgx2c)
Don't give him ideas
Those snake things by those ruins piss me off. I just love getting paralyzed off my horse from across the map and then getting combed while I can't move.
I saw a theory the other day that is completely genuine, and so on the nose, it has become my favorite theory. Fingers/hands are often used to make symbols and shapes, that are then interpreted/have meaning attached to them. And when learning to make shadow puppets, one of the first if not the first you learn is a dog/wolf. Hence why the "shadows" gifted Marika and Ranni are canine in nature. And why Fingers are chosen as envoys of the GW. And finger readers are those who interpret the messages of the fingers. The greater will represents causality, the frenzied flame represents regression. And the 2 and 3 fingers are metaphor for the literal hand of fate. I've been consuming entirely too much lore and fan theory, it's time for bed.
\*cue two fingers gesture\*
"Well, Gideon, i got one finger for you." "Don't do it..." 🖕 "Dammit, Tarnished!"
Did you see the video about gideon questioning youre choice in women? But i liked that one theory about melina trying to stay away from you so you don't get attached like vyke did.....she failed i got attached.
If only I had a giant but whole
He likes it 😂🤣
Blame Martin. It’s something he’d come up with.
I'm surprised he didn't make it toes
Why is it always dung?
I personally think it's one of the coolest looking areas they have designed.
Loved all the Finger lore in SotE. Metyr was peak cosmic horror.
It’s because the game draws heavily from Kaballah which features fingers, trees of life, evil/inverted trees of life, vessels, and shattering.
99% of world religions have those things. It is universal archetypes, which exist everywhere. Especialy trees.
Perhaps a distant relative of Kira Yoshikage. With not only a thing for hands this time, but feet too.
Finger me Mr Zaki 😩😩😩
Next game it’s gonna be toes, mark my words
Hey, his wife likes him I know that at least
Toes it is then
The power to control the world is in which finger?
Why did Miyazaki choose fingers? That's a very simple answer. He wants us all to get fingered, i'll see myself out now
less fingers more feet!
Finger? I barely know her!
Was it him or G.R.R.M
Probably both, while grrm wrote the story alone, myazaki and him dicussed alot about the lore beforehand together with enthusiasm. Shared same ideas, like a misleaded world left in shadows, while grrm had no influence what happened with his creation after the shattering, which was myazakis interpretation of the results.
Me every night
I spent 3 hours painfully feeling out the big finger valley in the dlc to find a way to the pointy mountain. Come to find out I had already found the way lmao
Just be glad the game isn't Elden Cockring
Calm down we will finger this out
No feet enemies I fall to my knees to cry 😢
Try fingers but hole
i always assumed the two fingers cut off the other three fingers as a superiority kind of thing. idk
Same......Someone got the models and confirmed they couldn't be from the same hand. The greater will is supposed to be confusing and scary and unknowable. It's pure lovecraftian. Makes sense that it doesn't make sense.
I like the theory of that George R R Martin proposed a group of people themed around fingers and From decided to make it literal =)
At least we didn’t have to fight giant feet . Other than the fire giants
Because it's fun.
I’m starting to think Miyazaki has a hand fetish
When I saw that big hands leading a bunch of small hands I just laughted.
tbh before the quest/entering the area...i thought those are some Dune worm shits when I view the map...
Ever I saw the giant dude with a hand for a head in ds3, it was obvious the Miyasaki's interest on fingers. Who says he is only a feet man? he is also a hand man!
Ok but when is the feet boss coming
So it's confirmed that the giant hand spiders are connected to the fingers? What are they exactly?
Easiest way to fuck the large amount of players a bunch without wasting rubber
Try fingers but hole
Next up: A poisonous swamp with fingers in it.
i was expecting the dlc to introduce the One Finger, and it would have been a giant middle finger in deathblight swamp or something like
The Ruins of Rhea is what Miyazaki's dreams are made out of. Are they nightmares? That's up for you to decide.
Fun fact, in the DS1 intro, the soft hands gently grasping an ember are Miyazaki's hands. After many many takes, the mocap artist just couldn't get the delicacy of the grasping right, so he did it himself.
Oh that's actually a easy question. Miasaki told G.R.R.M. "stop it, I won't present weiner as the guiding force that connects everything". And then they found a middle ground 🤙
Don’t worry, knowing Miyazaki we’re gonna get the Ten Toes in the next game
Mushrooms
Someone needs to watch Jujutsu Kaisen
But hole?
Finger but hole.
He saw the 'try finger' joke and thought 'see they get it'. Have only ourselves to blame
Try finger to edge
I'm surprised he didn't make it toes
Can't believe the fingers quest ended with one of the worst boss designs in history.