#OK theres a ton of threads to keep track of here so please let me know if i missed something!!!!

[slavonicrhapsody]

Ranni and Rykard as narrative foils: an unnecessarily detailed deep dive

Ranni and Rykard both seek the same thing; the end of the Erdtree’s reign. In the past, the two collaborated on the Night of the Black Knives toward this purpose. But nowadays, the siblings’ paths are diverged, and they seem to follow completely separate agendas. Why? What happened? What drove them apart?

A main point of difference between Ranni and Rykard immediately post-Shattering is that Ranni is said to have “cast aside her Great Rune,” while Rykard kept his. Regarding the Great Runes, Finger Reader Enia says: “Tainted by the strength of their runes, [Marika’s] children warred.” The Great Runes are a source of power that corrupts, which Rykard fell prey to while Ranni removed the temptation.

As collaborators and as siblings, it is likely that they fought about this; Rykard believing that the strength of the runes is necessary to carry out their goals, and Ranni seeing the corrupting power of the runes for what it is. The resulting circumstance is, of course, Rykard’s participation in the war of the Shattering and his descent into power-hungry madness. Ranni, however, never strayed from her original goals, patiently plotting from the shadows.

Set on these diverging paths, the siblings’ actions shape them into narrative foils of each other… putting the rest under the cut because I can’t shut up:

Though both Ranni and Rykard seek to bring down the Golden Order, only one of them is ever called blasphemous. One definition of blasphemy is specifically “the crime of assuming oneself the rights or qualities of God,” and I think this is the definition that most applies to Rykard.

The Taker’s Cameo item states that, “when Rykard turned to heresy, taking by force became the rule. The gods themselves were no different, after all.” Here, we see Rykard directly imitating the behavior of the gods, though he curses them.

But not only does Rykard imitate the gods’ behavior; he also imitates Golden Order and Erdtree practices, albeit in a corrupted way. He utilizes weapons and sorcery that are both intelligence and faith-based, much like his father Radagon’s Golden Order incantations. Even the very concept of the God-Devouring Serpent can be seen as a perversion of the Erdtree… Rykard’s practice of devouring heroes to be togethaaa as famileee echoes the practice of Erdtree burial, where in both instances, a great mass of bodies is brought together to merge into one whole (the Serpent King and the Erdtree, respectively). The Serpent’s actions actually fit the Golden Order Law of Regression shockingly well: “all things yearn eternally to converge.”

The point of these comparisons is to show that Rykard isn’t actually making any meaningful change to the current world order… his plan is to essentially devour the current corrupt gods, and replace them with a new corrupt god (himself) that perpetuates the exact same practices. He and Ranni once sought to free the Lands Between from these corrupt gods, but he has become precisely what he hates most of all!

Ranni, on the other hand, does the opposite. Since the beginning of the Shattering, she has staunchly refused to engage with overt power grabs and warmongering. Instead, she has extricated herself from the system entirely, slaying her empyrean flesh and casting her Great Rune aside.

Regarding her new order, Ranni seeks to “betray everything, and rid the world of what came before,” tearing up the system from the very root. Her master plan is to completely remove the influence of the gods from the Lands Between, so rather than stay and rule as god-queen, she leaves: “As it is now, life, and souls, and order are bound tightly together, but I would have them at great remove. […] I would abandon this soil, with mine order.”

In Ranni's new age, life and souls are no longer directly tied to or influenced by the ruling order like they were during the age of the Erdtree. It makes perfect sense why Ranni would want to remove this influence, as she was born an empyrean with the Two Fingers' influence in her very flesh — one of her most crucial lines of dialogue in my opinion is when she says of the Two Fingers, “I would not be controlled by that thing.” with the most iron conviction in her voice.

In this way, Ranni is Rykard’s narrative foil: Rykard falls victim to the corrupting force of power, but Ranni resists the temptation. Rykard ends up imitating and becoming the gods which he hates, while Ranni is able to truly remove their influence. While Rykard trapped himself within a vicious cycle, Ranni was able to escape, freeing the Lands Between from the cycle as well. It's such a tragic end for two siblings who used to work together.

#elden ring #ranni #ranni the witch #rykard #rykard lord of blasphemy #OK theres a ton of threads to keep track of here so please let me know if i missed something!!!! #PLUS they have the ice and fire symbolism thing going on (hello?? GRRM???) they were literally made to be paralleled come on!!! #the siblings of all time (sorry radahn) #​btw this isn’t meant to be a meditation on the goodness or badness of ranni’s ending that’s for you to decide