Someone Whose Face Is A Mask. Michael Kinnucan, The Gods Show Up

Someone whose face is a mask. — Michael Kinnucan, The Gods Show Up

What about my son?

— BETTER CALL SAUL 6.09: Fun and Games

"why would anyone confuse you with me?"

@strawbrygashez

Let me start off this post with a bold statment. Godfrey is the single biggest political statement in Elden Ring.

Yes, this guy. The big buff wrestler man with grey hair and lion Stand (jojo!)

Because his name isn't Godfrey, it's Hoarah Loux. But to along with his culture, he had to seperate himself from his own name. Hoarah Loux was the chieftain of a group of people whose home is only reffered to as "The Badlands" before encountering Marika. Now we don't have much on specific details of how their meeting went, but considering Marika and the Golden Order in game are responsible for either the subjugation or genocide of multiple groups, (Misbegotten, Zamor, Trolls, Fire Giants, Omen, and Albinauric.) Its not unreasonable to assume her meeting with Hoarah Loux and his people was not treated as a meeting of equals. But mutliple mentions of this group he led mention respecting power and strength, so even an unfair agreement between them could have been fostered due to Marika's power as a goddess. Hence why Hoarah Loux had to shed his "savage" name and culture to become a "proper" lord for Marika as Godfrey. Similar acts were commited by the United States to indigenous tribes of the America's and to slaves brought here from Africa. They were forced to go by "good christian names" in order to seperate them from their own cultures.

In game, a starting class for the player is Hero. They are specified as having descended from the badlands chieftain. Now whether that's literal like the image of Nepheli in it's example art, or metaphorical in that they come from his tribe/cultural group isn't clear....because I can't read the original Japanese. But what I can read are context clues.

All of the Hero classes equipment contain a line about how they shun excessive adornments. But in all his depictions as Godfrey, he looks very adorned, with his massive cape and fine clothing intermixed with his armor. Something he removes when entering his second phase.

When you bring him down to 50% health, Godfrey tears away his spirit bound companion Serosh, his oppulent armor and clothing, and even his axe. He offers to and I quote, "fight you as Hoarah Loux, Warrior!" And his new boss title above his healthbar reflects that, no longer reading Godfrey, First Elden Lord. This means even he knows that Godfrey is not him, he is Hoarah Loux a man whose people outside of Nepheli and possibly the player...aren't shown in game. There is no location in game where they are, or historically were.

And considering prior to the games start, Hoarah Loux and a large group of people who "Lost the grace of gold" were banished from the lands between to wage war eternally outside of it...I think most of those people were the people of Hoarah Loux's culture. We learn that Marika made Hoarah Loux the Elden Lord in order for him to act as her general, and it would only make sense for his troops to be comprised of the people who came from the same warrior culture he did. That's why I think they are called the "Hero" class. Hoarah Loux's people fought at the front lines of the Golden Order's conquests, became hero's to the common folk and once their use was over, they were banished alongside their leader. This is similar to how in the United States, we call our soldiers "Hero's" but then a disproportionate number of it's soldiers come from it's territories and not it's actual states. Locations that lack government representation and aren't considered US citizens. Such as the people from the American territory of Samoa, Guam, and Peurto Rico.

Because Badlands isn't a location inside of the map we play, and it doesn't fit the way other locations are named. It's a title for a specific type of biome, like Taiga or Bayou. Hoarah Loux is the leader of a people who were subjucated, used as soldiers, seen as too savage to be allowed to keep their names and culture (in Hoarah Loux's case), and then sent away as soon as they were inconvenient to keep around. They don't even get the dignity of having the land qthey hailed from remebered as anything more than a geographical feature.

So to reiterate. The old man who power bombs your character while shirtless is the most political statement in the whole game. If you know what your looking at.

laios985

labs that are also churches. to me

(1. annie dillard, teaching a stone to talk 2. the deep underground neutrino experiment, a.k.a. DUNE 3. the large hadron collider 4. the sudbury neutrino observatory)