FH Mini 142 - Respect Your Eldens

[0:00] Hey there folks, I'm Stuart Wellington of the Flophouse podcast, and welcome to another

[0:09] Flophouse Mini. I am one of the members of the Flophouse, and my co-hosts are...

[0:14] Me, Dan McCoy.

[0:16] And myself, Elliot Kaelin, author of Joke Farming, How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense

[0:20] on Store Shelves Now. I have a bit of a cold, which is why I sound, as always, sexier.

[0:26] Yeah, yeah. Alex, can you just jack up Elliot's levels to make him sound less like he has

[0:31] a sexy cold?

[0:32] I mean...

[0:33] What's that helium filter on?

[0:34] Guys, this is me now.

[0:35] Do one of them Alvin and the Chipmunks thangs to it? Okay.

[0:41] Guys, an Alvin and the Chipmunks would make more sense than an Alvin and Thelonious Monks,

[0:45] which is a different order. It's less about speeding up the sound and more about questioning

[0:49] what music is.

[0:51] Yeah. Is it a thing you put in your ears, or is it something you devour like a carnivorous

[0:56] creature?

[0:57] Although, we'll say the Alvin and Thelonious Monks version of All I Want for Christmas

[1:00] Is My Two Front Teeth, worth listening to.

[1:02] Okay. I thought you were about to say that it's worthless, and I'm like, come on, Elliot,

[1:07] that's harsh even for you.

[1:08] I would never say that. Never.

[1:09] So, here at the Flophouse, we normally watch a bad movie and talk about it, but here on

[1:13] a Flophouse Mini, we are doing our own thing, which is, aka, whatever Stuart wants to do.

[1:19] And today, I have two friends, and they are trapped here with me.

[1:23] I would love to paint a word picture for the audience that Stuart has what might be described

[1:28] as an impish grin on his face, a certain mischievous quality to him that worries me greatly.

[1:36] Dan is gripping the desk that we're sitting at with an intensity that I'm worried is going

[1:40] to fracture the material he's holding.

[1:43] Yeah, I'm kind of worried Dan is wasting money right now on the whole chair, because he's

[1:47] only using the edge.

[1:49] Just to give a little bit of preamble here, a few weeks ago, maybe a month, Dan and I

[1:56] had the lucky opportunity to go out to dinner with our good friend, podcaster, author, comedian,

[2:02] actor, John Hodgman.

[2:04] And John invited us out to dinner with his friend, novelist George R.R. Martin.

[2:10] Now, if you're a regular listener of the show, you'll know that this is a huge deal for at

[2:15] least Stuart, because Stuart is an enormous Song of Ice and Fire fan.

[2:19] And I needed to have my emotional support Dan there so I could hold on to him in case

[2:23] I was about to faint.

[2:24] Yeah, thanks for animalizing me in this scenario.

[2:28] I will mention, Elliot was not invited.

[2:30] So you could say, hey, Elliot, you were 3,000 miles away at the time.

[2:33] And I can say, what about the New York to LA bullet train that I could have taken in

[2:38] just several hours?

[2:39] No, no, that's full of killers.

[2:40] You don't want to get on that train.

[2:41] That's why I don't take it.

[2:42] Good point.

[2:43] Good point.

[2:44] Yeah.

[2:45] Honestly, if Elliot was in town, he wouldn't have been able to go out because it was well

[2:48] past his bedtime.

[2:49] Yeah, that's true.

[2:50] But if it was earlier...

[2:51] Too bad, because I'm such a big fan of George R.R. Martin's work with Jerry Lewis as Martin

[2:53] and Lewis.

[2:54] Oh, that's great.

[2:55] Unfortunately, they never finished the routines.

[2:59] So this was a really big deal for me.

[3:01] And we went out to a very nice dinner.

[3:03] And George was a sweetie.

[3:05] And I got to sit next to him.

[3:06] And I did feel exactly like a Make-A-Wish kid the whole time.

[3:10] It's the closest I think I've ever seen, Stuart, to a picture of a grown child next to Santa

[3:15] Claus.

[3:16] Just with the light on your face and the picture I saw.

[3:19] Yeah.

[3:20] Yes, it was lovely.

[3:21] And I made a point of not asking anything about the Song of Ice and Fire books, spinoffs,

[3:27] etc., etc.

[3:28] You only told him how great you loved the end of the series, of the TV series.

[3:31] Yeah.

[3:32] It was all Beauty and the Beast talk.

[3:33] It was all...

[3:34] It was all wild cards.

[3:35] Yeah.

[3:36] The thing that I really wanted to talk about, and which is going to be the subject of today's

[3:39] mini, is his involvement in the writing of the background for the video game Elden Ring.

[3:47] And because Elden Ring also is being developed into a movie by writer-director Alex Garland,

[3:55] who even flew all the way out to Japan to meet with series developer Hidetaka Miyazaki

[4:03] to plan an Elden Ring movie, which I will say, I've had mixed feelings toward the work

[4:09] of Alex Garland, and I feel like it is an interesting choice, but, hey, you know, he's

[4:13] got to follow his passions.

[4:14] I thought, why not give my two best buddies a glimpse into something that I'm passionate

[4:20] about and give them a little bit of a heads up for a movie that will maybe come out sometime?

[4:27] Okay.

[4:28] Aren't you guys excited?

[4:29] Are you guys excited to step into the lands between with me?

[4:33] Sure.

[4:35] I'm excited to find out something about Elden Ring, which I know exists.

[4:41] I've never played it.

[4:42] All I know is it sounds to me like an old ring.

[4:44] These are words I've heard.

[4:45] Like it's an elderly ring.

[4:47] So you haven't played Elden Ring.

[4:49] Like a rapely old ring.

[4:51] It's kind of like that.

[4:53] So you have no experience with Elden Ring.

[4:56] Now, Elden Ring is produced by a company that makes, and it's kind of a spiritual part.

[5:00] Wait.

[5:01] Is Elden Ring missed?

[5:02] No.

[5:03] I don't know Elden Ring.

[5:04] Is Elden Ring one of the rings that Sonic the Hedgehog collects?

[5:06] Because then I would be familiar with it.

[5:07] If Sonic the Hedgehog collects the Elden Ring and became Elden Lord, I would be very impressed.

[5:12] That's what I was going to say.

[5:14] Probably get what?

[5:15] I'd probably get deeper involved in my Sonic fan fiction.

[5:19] So Sonic is not in it?

[5:21] Or Sonic is not pregnant in it?

[5:22] No, he's neither.

[5:23] Although, there is some pregnancy in it.

[5:26] What about Echo the Dolphin?

[5:27] Pregnant with possibilities.

[5:28] Does Echo the Dolphin show up?

[5:29] You guys are listing a lot of video games, but actually Elden Ring is kind of part of

[5:32] the Dark Souls.

[5:34] Does it feature either ToeJam or Earl or both?

[5:36] In a way, yes.

[5:38] So Elden Ring is part of the Dark Souls universe.

[5:41] Are you guys familiar with the Dark Souls games?

[5:43] Is there any clay fighting in Elden Ring?

[5:45] I'm also glad that Elliot's only listing games from the Sega Genesis from like a six-month

[5:50] window.

[5:51] That's not the last point at which I was familiar with a lot of video games.

[5:56] How many?

[5:57] Is the Rage primal?

[5:58] Yeah.

[5:59] Dark Souls.

[6:00] So Dark Souls.

[6:01] What is Dark Souls?

[6:02] It's a Dark Souls franchise.

[6:03] Are you familiar?

[6:04] Now, Dark Souls is very popular.

[6:05] I played Dead Cells, which sort of sounds like Dark Souls.

[6:08] Now, Dead Cells is a roguelite.

[6:09] Now I read Nikolai Gogol's classic novel, Dead Souls, a kind of, not quite satire, but

[6:15] picaresque comedy about the Russian landowners of the 19th century.

[6:19] Is that what it's about?

[6:20] Well, I think Elliot, you're talking about the book that inspired the hit song by, what

[6:26] is it, New Order?

[6:27] New Order was a Joy Division, Joy Division, Dead Souls, which was then covered famously

[6:32] in the Crow soundtrack by Trent Reznor.

[6:36] By the way, for the listeners, we're experimenting with something new called podcast edging.

[6:42] We're never going to get to where we're going.

[6:44] I was like, you guys, this is going to be a long one.

[6:45] You're like, okay, that's great.

[6:47] And then you're helping me make it longer.

[6:49] We're never going to get to the fireworks factory.

[6:51] I was like, I hope this will be short.

[6:53] And Stuart's like, I got a bunch of stuff in this one.

[6:55] I'm like, oh no.

[6:56] And now we're the ones slowing it down.

[6:59] Unfortunately, once you get me naming 90s console video games, that's when there's a

[7:03] problem.

[7:04] Yeah.

[7:05] Okay.

[7:06] So Elden Ring is kind of part of the Dark Souls universe, which are a series of video

[7:09] role-playing games.

[7:10] Last question, is that related to the Dark Universe of movie titles, of which there was

[7:14] one?

[7:15] Yes.

[7:16] Are you talking about the Mummy?

[7:17] There's one official one.

[7:18] I feel like they had a couple of them.

[7:19] I thought Dragon Ball Z was kind of like a Hayden Pilot soft launch that did not take.

[7:25] Yeah.

[7:27] Failure launch.

[7:28] Also part of it.

[7:29] Also part of the Dark Universe.

[7:30] It was a romance between Frankenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein.

[7:34] Yeah.

[7:35] Yeah.

[7:36] So the Dark Souls games.

[7:37] I mean the Doctor, not the monster.

[7:38] Doctor Frankenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein, Elizabeth.

[7:40] Anyway, continue, Stu.

[7:41] So the Dark Souls games.

[7:42] It was a prequel before they made the monster.

[7:44] Stu, continue.

[7:45] So the Dark Souls games are famously difficult.

[7:49] They're role-playing games.

[7:51] They have like a semi-open world.

[7:53] They're somewhat non, like there's like, they're not entirely linear and they don't

[7:58] give you a lot of direction, a lot of the information, like the background of the lore.

[8:03] You have to learn through like reading item descriptions and finding things in game.

[8:08] I see why they're popular.

[8:10] There are games that kind of reward you for like exploring and diving deep and like dying

[8:16] over and over again because over time you'll get better at it.

[8:21] I like the world where you just, everything gets worse over time, shaking my head.

[8:24] And when you die the one time, that's it.

[8:26] You don't get better.

[8:27] This is exactly the sort of video game I hate, a big scrolling world where you have to read

[8:31] a lot of stuff and explore.

[8:33] You don't quite know what you're supposed to do.

[8:35] I mean, it's kind of fascinating.

[8:36] As I get older, I really like video games that are side-scrollers where there's such

[8:38] limits on what your actions are that it's very clear and you don't have to use your

[8:42] brain except to like time villain movements, you know.

[8:45] But the thing that's kind of fascinating about it is there are also games where you don't

[8:48] really need to pay attention to the lore.

[8:51] You can just like make yourself the strongest guy and go bash things with a giant club and

[8:55] you'll still get a satisfying experience out of it.

[8:58] But if you want to learn the lore, you have to do a lot of work in game or you have to

[9:03] track down like six hour long YouTube videos by very confident nerds.

[9:10] Or you can listen to a short podcast like this one.

[9:13] There's also an Elden Ring manga that I'm not entirely familiar with, but my understanding

[9:19] is it's like a weird parody joke comic, which is also very funny that this big, sprawling,

[9:25] serious role playing game is supported by a weird goof comic.

[9:30] OK, now I like it.

[9:33] So what is Elden Ring?

[9:34] Elden Ring is an open world video role playing game.

[9:37] I just want to mention that Stuart's been talking for a while now and then he got to

[9:40] so what is Elden Ring?

[9:42] I had hoped that question had been answered already.

[9:46] It's a role playing game where you it's action adventure.

[9:50] You fight big bosses.

[9:51] You kill dudes.

[9:52] You get stronger over time with the eventual goal of becoming Elden Lord.

[10:00] Give you guys an idea of what are the privileges of being Elden Lord.

[10:03] What are the benefits?

[10:03] Why do you want to be Elden Lord?

[10:04] It kind of depends on which version of the Elden Ring rune,

[10:10] what master rune you're going to use at the end with you

[10:14] when you heal the shattered Elden Ring.

[10:17] I think that'll determine what kind of age you usher in,

[10:21] but we'll get to that later.

[10:24] OK, so just to give you guys a snippet of the lore,

[10:27] the game begins with a very exciting cinematic,

[10:29] and we're going to watch that now,

[10:30] and we'll take a brief break, listeners, and we'll come back.

[10:39] OK, and we're back, guys.

[10:40] We just watched the opening cinematic video of the Elden Ring,

[10:43] and I feel that probably cleared everything up,

[10:45] but you might have a few questions, thoughts, reactions.

[10:49] That didn't explain anything to me, and it was really long.

[10:53] At first, I was going to make fun of it.

[10:55] You said it was very cinematic,

[10:56] and it's literally just panning across a bunch of sort of paintings.

[11:00] So are you saying that Ken Burns is not cinematic?

[11:03] I can't hear him, actually.

[11:06] But you know what, I...

[11:07] Ken Burns' Elden Ring documentary would be incredible.

[11:10] I can't wait to see his 17-part Elden Ring documentary.

[11:14] I got to say, I do actually...

[11:16] I was thinking about it.

[11:16] I do prefer that to, like, interminable cut scenes

[11:20] where people talk to one another, honestly.

[11:22] I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of those in the game, right?

[11:26] Not really, no.

[11:27] That's one of the things about the Dark Souls games.

[11:29] They don't actually have that many little cut scenes or animated sequences.

[11:33] Yeah, but I didn't...

[11:33] The lore did not...

[11:35] The lore was not illuminated for me.

[11:36] So here's what I think I...

[11:37] So here's what I think I understand from it.

[11:40] There's a...

[11:40] There was a...

[11:41] There's a thing called the Elden Ring.

[11:43] It got broken somehow.

[11:46] Bad happened, and the Queen disappeared.

[11:49] There's a place called the Lands Between,

[11:52] which you are either from or going to.

[11:55] And the Elden Ring is either from it or went to it.

[11:59] And there's these guys who are...

[12:00] And a lot of bad guys have parts of it, I think.

[12:02] There's a bunch of guys, they mention at the end,

[12:04] who are either fellow champions or bosses you'll lay me up against

[12:09] or helpers on your quest.

[12:11] I mean, they seem pretty evil.

[12:13] Like, one of them was, like, the Dung Master or something like that.

[12:15] The Lonesome Dung Eater, yeah.

[12:16] The Lonesome Dung...

[12:17] I see, but you never know.

[12:18] That could be, like, the hero in the fantasy novel

[12:20] who goes from lowest to highest, you know.

[12:22] Or, as Spike Lee would have it, highest to lowest.

[12:24] Yep.

[12:25] So, let's...

[12:26] I think it's time for us to take a deep dive and unpack this.

[12:30] I will point out that I actually...

[12:33] I'm worried that we're going to try to dive deep,

[12:35] and it won't be that deep.

[12:36] It'll be like in the Bugs Bunny cartoons

[12:39] where he's going to dive from a high platform into a glass of water.

[12:42] Yeah.

[12:43] I will say that I think this cinematic's very funny

[12:46] because it plays and introduces a lot of character names.

[12:50] Yeah.

[12:51] And a lot of those characters you don't meet

[12:53] until you've played the game for, like, 20 hours or something.

[12:56] And you're like,

[12:57] you have long forgotten this opening cinematic,

[13:00] so it doesn't...

[13:01] Oh, Gold Mask.

[13:02] Oh, of course.

[13:03] Yeah, I've been waiting for you.

[13:04] Running into an all-knowing Gold Mask is pretty exciting.

[13:08] Now, the thing is that having played the game a couple times,

[13:11] I've only done two full playthroughs,

[13:15] put in about 200 hours, okay?

[13:18] I'm not going to go into my build, everybody.

[13:20] We're not going to worry about that, but I might talk about it.

[13:22] Allie, do you want to, like, maybe shift some of your making fun of me

[13:26] for my free time to Stuart at this point?

[13:27] I think I'll have to, yeah, at this point.

[13:29] Okay, we'll just put a few chips over there.

[13:32] That's about, what, eight or nine days straight

[13:35] of playing this game of just free time to wander around.

[13:37] Which I did straight, ignoring everything.

[13:41] In a pile of his own sick and good waste.

[13:43] I was the lonesome dung-eater in this case.

[13:45] I was literally saying to my...

[13:47] You know, it was my birthday recently,

[13:48] and my wife and I went out to dinner,

[13:50] and at dinner she was talking about a friend's co-worker

[13:53] who has some hobby, and I was like,

[13:54] I wish, that'd be amazing to have the time for a hobby,

[13:58] like a thing you do that is not work-related.

[14:00] That sounds amazing.

[14:01] 95% of Elliot's complaints are user error.

[14:05] Elliot's choices in his life have slowed him.

[14:08] Like, he's like, I don't have free time.

[14:10] To be fair, one of the big current choice,

[14:12] I feel like, you know, was based on false information.

[14:15] But I think you're right.

[14:18] If the user error in that,

[14:19] in choosing my personal career and family structure.

[14:24] Over becoming Elden Lord?

[14:26] Yes.

[14:27] You fucked up, dog.

[14:28] I mean, nobody told me, you know, 12 years ago

[14:31] that the choice would be Elden Lord, yeah.

[14:34] It's weird, too, because yeah,

[14:36] I'm like super unsuccessful

[14:37] and don't get anything done in my days either.

[14:40] So, let's go on.

[14:42] Okay, so one thing I will also say.

[14:43] I mean, the difference I guess, too,

[14:44] is that when you die, that's just it.

[14:46] You just turn to dust.

[14:47] Whereas, I will have left a legacy in chromosomes

[14:49] that will continue on, you know.

[14:51] Sure.

[14:53] Yeah, yeah, because this world's lasting a long time.

[14:55] Yeah, and you'll peer out from behind his eyes

[14:56] like the end of Being John Malkovich.

[14:58] Similar.

[14:59] When I, when I, when I, when I,

[15:02] no, I don't want to get into it.

[15:03] Just how often, just how often you get a hug

[15:06] from Elden Ring is something that we can talk about.

[15:08] You know?

[15:09] I mean, I'll also point out that our world

[15:13] is similar to the world's presented in games like.

[15:15] I apologize, it's more fun to make fun of Dan

[15:16] for his free time.

[15:17] Anyway.

[15:19] And similar to, our world is similar to Elden Ring

[15:22] and the worlds of Dark Souls in that we exist

[15:24] in a empire that is decaying and crumbling,

[15:27] almost like a massive mausoleum

[15:30] in which we have to fight and scrape our way to survive.

[15:33] So.

[15:34] Is that a thing in Elden Ring,

[15:35] that you're in a massive mausoleum,

[15:36] or is that just metaphor?

[15:37] The general design of everything

[15:39] almost feels like you're in a massive graveyard.

[15:41] Ah, okay.

[15:42] So, I will also point out that I actually really enjoy,

[15:46] you guys were, Dan was commenting

[15:49] on how slow the narrator reads,

[15:50] but I actually kind of love it.

[15:52] And this guy goes hard as hell

[15:54] in some of these, in some of the line deliveries.

[15:56] Like when he describes, you know, he says,

[15:59] Arise ye tarnished.

[16:01] And when he's like, he mentions Sir Gideon

[16:03] off near the all-knowing, and I'm like,

[16:05] this dude just blasted in his pants.

[16:07] I have never wanted so much to have a Juben Parang

[16:11] at two times speed.

[16:12] No way, no way.

[16:13] I think here's my-

[16:14] Then he blasts extra fast.

[16:15] Here's my feeling about this.

[16:17] I love kind of like, I don't always love to read in depth

[16:20] or experience fantasy nonsense stuff,

[16:22] but I love the concepts of fantasy nonsense stuff.

[16:25] And if you're going to do it, you got to do it all out.

[16:27] You want a guy reading it.

[16:28] I think he did a great job,

[16:29] whoever the actor was who read that.

[16:30] You don't want somebody winking at you the whole time.

[16:32] You want somebody who's like, this is my book.

[16:33] The drama was fine.

[16:34] When you have to say, Arise ye tarnished,

[16:36] you want it to feel like he's telling the tarnished,

[16:38] Arise ye-

[16:38] You can have a bunch of drama at a normal speaking rate.

[16:43] I don't think you can.

[16:44] It's supposed to be epic and mythic.

[16:46] Oh, yeah.

[16:47] Okay, so-

[16:48] They talked slower then.

[16:50] So let us get into the lore of Elden Ring.

[16:53] Dan, can you please share the screen

[16:54] so you guys can see the inches in this PowerPoint I've crafted?

[16:58] Stuart has a PowerPoint that he's sharing.

[17:02] I will say, I feel like I've learned maybe, what,

[17:04] one half of one tenth of a percent

[17:06] of what there is to know about Elden Ring.

[17:08] Oh boy, a drop in the bucket.

[17:09] And honestly, I will say before I get into this,

[17:13] there is a good chance that somebody listening to this

[17:16] will be a more of an expert and I will get things wrong.

[17:19] Please save any critiques to tell,

[17:22] I don't know, your mom or someone else

[17:24] because I don't care about it.

[17:26] I'm doing my best here, folks.

[17:28] Yeah, I think, yeah, slideshow.

[17:30] Perfect.

[17:30] And I can advance this.

[17:31] Okay, so here's my PowerPoint.

[17:33] So you want to become the Elden Lord?

[17:35] Who's who and what's what in the lands between?

[17:38] What are the lands between?

[17:39] What are they between?

[17:40] Elliot, you got to our first point.

[17:42] The lands between presented here.

[17:45] The lands between is the realm, the world that you explore.

[17:49] So this is a world that is kind of crumbling.

[17:51] You have evidence of fallen empires.

[17:54] It's like a kind of a classic medieval fantasy world

[17:57] that it has a lot of different types of environments.

[18:00] This is a world that you can explore as your character

[18:04] and it's all looked over by, and by the way,

[18:09] there's a lot of information here.

[18:10] If you guys could just keep your questions for the end,

[18:12] that'd be really helpful.

[18:13] Yeah, I'm sure they'll be, yeah.

[18:15] No problem.

[18:16] That won't be hard for us.

[18:17] Yeah, so the...

[18:18] So Dan, what's, so Stu, what's that tree?

[18:21] That comes to our second point, Elliot.

[18:24] The world is, at all points, you can see kind of central

[18:27] to the world is this massive glowing tree referred,

[18:30] called the Ered Tree.

[18:32] This is kind of like an embodiment of the, I think,

[18:36] the greater will.

[18:37] I think is the term that they use.

[18:39] The greater will is kind of like a divine entity

[18:44] or divine feeling that exists kind of outside

[18:47] of the world of the game.

[18:49] Okay, so what are the worlds between?

[18:51] So the lands between is an interesting name

[18:54] in that it's kind of, I don't really know

[18:57] what the lands between refers to.

[18:59] Obviously, somebody can chime in, but don't.

[19:01] I mean, it sounds cool.

[19:02] It sounds super cool.

[19:03] It's a cool name, but this is...

[19:05] But like, is it between downtown and the arts district?

[19:09] Or like, is it between like a big parking lot

[19:12] and like a state park?

[19:14] I think it does refer to the fact that it's physically

[19:17] between things.

[19:19] I think it's separated from other lands

[19:21] that are not touched on within the course of the game.

[19:23] Like, is it between the California Pizza Kitchen

[19:25] and the Lens Crafters at the mall?

[19:27] I think it's a slightly larger amount of space

[19:29] because this is actually a pretty sprawling game.

[19:32] It's like the non-aliens in the fourth Indiana Jones.

[19:36] It's the space between spaces.

[19:38] Yes, it's a lot like that.

[19:40] So that's the Aired Tree.

[19:41] Now, the Aired Tree, you're probably one,

[19:42] you're like, you're talking about Aired Trees,

[19:44] lands between, what's the...

[19:46] I sure am.

[19:47] What's the whole deal with the Elden Ring?

[19:49] So the Elden Ring refers to long ago

[19:53] at a undesignated specific time...

[19:55] The only thing that worries me is that Stewart has not

[19:58] progressed from what this slide...

[20:00] to another slide this entire time, which makes me worry about the length of the presentation.

[20:06] I'm on the third note card.

[20:07] So tell us about the Elden Ring.

[20:09] So the Greater Will sent a weird beast, referred to as the Elden Beast, to the planet.

[20:18] Now, the Lands Between is often visited by creatures that come from the stars and land

[20:26] in meteors.

[20:29] And the Elden Beast is one of those things.

[20:31] And upon arriving, it transformed to become the Elden Ring, which actually I forgot to

[20:37] get a good image of.

[20:38] But you can see it if you look at the box art of the game.

[20:42] This helps me a lot, because every time you say Elden Ring, and I apologize, it's just

[20:46] my frame reference.

[20:47] Oh, yeah.

[20:48] That's the better.

[20:49] That's the urge.

[20:50] Every time I hear Elden Ring, and this is just my frame reference, I think it's referring

[20:53] to Elden, the character played by Robert Pastorelli on Murphy Brown, the house painter who was

[20:58] kind of sarcastic, and maybe there was some romantic tension.

[21:00] So it would be like one of his rings, sort of like a big Ringo Starr kind of like flashy

[21:06] ring.

[21:07] Yeah, exactly.

[21:08] Because Ringo Starr was named after all the rings he had?

[21:09] I think maybe.

[21:10] I think it might have been, yeah.

[21:11] Oh, yeah.

[21:12] Because he was born with a handful of rings, and that's how they knew he was the right-born

[21:15] drummer of the Beatles.

[21:16] Yeah.

[21:17] Well, I think that whoever gave the other Marx Brothers their names also named Ringo.

[21:22] That was, I believe, Art Fisher was the one who gave the Marx Brothers their names.

[21:26] Okay, so the Elden Ring is this kind of like golden rune, okay?

[21:31] It's got like prongs and rings and various shapes that kind of make it up.

[21:35] And those various runes that make up this greater rune, the Elden Ring, those form the

[21:41] basis of the laws of this universe, okay, as designated by the greater will.

[21:48] Now, the greater will, of course, they have elected a god.

[21:53] The god queen, in this case, is Queen Merica the Eternal, once a shaman queen raised up

[21:59] to godhood, anointed by the Two Fingers.

[22:03] Now, Queen Merica took the...

[22:05] Wait, the what?

[22:06] That one?

[22:07] Oh, I'll get there in a second.

[22:08] Okay.

[22:09] Now, Queen Merica took the Elden Ring...

[22:10] I've got two fingers for this.

[22:11] ...and she manipulated...

[22:12] Now, Queen Merica's an important figure in the world of Elden Ring because she's kind

[22:18] of the chief deity.

[22:20] The chief deity.

[22:24] But she is absent in the game.

[22:26] You see statues of her.

[22:29] Much like God in real life.

[22:31] Much like God in real life.

[22:32] Or Dan in real life, yeah.

[22:33] I'm about to leave.

[22:34] Now, Queen Merica took the...

[22:40] Which does sound, I think, suspiciously a lot like somebody just saying America without

[22:45] the A.

[22:46] Yeah.

[22:47] Yeah, it does.

[22:48] I think that's a specific choice.

[22:49] It sounds like the way George W. Bush would say it, yeah.

[22:51] Queen Merica took the Elden Ring and she manipulated it, removing the rune of death

[22:57] so that she, her demigod offspring, and other people within the lands between would not

[23:04] truly die.

[23:06] And the repercussions will follow.

[23:07] Instead, they just stay in Congress forever.

[23:09] It is like America.

[23:10] Yeah.

[23:11] So, as I said, Merica was anointed by the two fingers, which are represented in the

[23:16] world by two massive fingers.

[23:20] Hold on, you're moving a little too fast for me.

[23:22] It's kind of hard to see.

[23:26] They're also...

[23:27] Yeah, you can see dead versions of the two fingers.

[23:30] And they are fingers?

[23:31] They're like two giant moving fingers?

[23:32] Yeah, they're two massive fingers.

[23:33] Yeah, duh.

[23:34] So who do they belong to?

[23:35] So that's the thing.

[23:36] They belong to...

[23:37] Liberosity.

[23:38] They are beneficiaries of the greater will.

[23:39] They share the greater will with the rest of the world.

[23:42] However, they actually don't speak.

[23:44] So that has to be interpreted by finger-reading crones and finger maidens who interpret what

[23:51] the fingers are saying.

[23:52] Now, unfortunately...

[23:53] Like that man, co-creator Bill Finker?

[23:55] Yes.

[23:56] Now, unfortunately, the connection the fingers had to the greater will was severed long ago.

[24:03] So they don't actually...

[24:04] What they are saying may or may not be true.

[24:07] So even the fingers are kind of faking it till they make it.

[24:10] Yeah.

[24:11] So, is the universe is finger-lickin' good?

[24:14] There's a shocking amount of finger-related stuff that happens in this game.

[24:20] It was originally called Finger Ring.

[24:21] They said, well, we can't name the game that.

[24:23] We can't name the game Finger Ring.

[24:24] It's called Hardcore Finger Ring.

[24:26] It's called Elden Ring.

[24:28] What do rings go on?

[24:29] That's right, fingers.

[24:30] Oh, no, you're right.

[24:31] It all connects.

[24:32] Okay, so as Queen Merica...

[24:33] Belly buttons.

[24:34] Noses.

[24:35] Ears.

[24:36] Penises, even.

[24:37] Penises or scrotums, yeah.

[24:39] As Merica was raised up to godhood, she began...

[24:41] Let's hear it for rings, everybody, and their versatile body placement.

[24:45] Good job, rings.

[24:47] You said fingers aren't enough for me.

[24:49] I gotta see what else is out there.

[24:51] And you colonized the body.

[24:53] So as Queen Merica was raised up and began her golden order, that is her lineage of demigods...

[25:01] And she is...

[25:02] Is she supposed to be seen as a benevolent deity or a malevolent deity?

[25:07] Well, that's the thing.

[25:08] She's generally presented as a benevolent deity, but there are some who question how

[25:12] benevolent she really is.

[25:13] And when you look at her actions, as I will describe, you will see that perhaps maybe

[25:17] she's a little more complicated.

[25:18] Because everything you're describing sounds bad to me, yeah.

[25:21] So she began her golden order, and in order to do that, she needed to conquer the rest

[25:25] of the world to make sure that they would fall into her age of order.

[25:32] And for that...

[25:33] Again, this is what the villain usually does.

[25:34] For that, she enlisted the aid of a barbarian chieftain, Hora-Lu, who was a battle-thirsty

[25:42] maniac who was able to temper his battle lust by bonding with Serash, a white lion creature.

[25:51] For some reason, made him less bestial and violent.

[25:55] Because the white lion creature in the picture looks very violent, looks ready to strike.

[25:59] Yeah.

[26:00] Sort of spectral, too.

[26:01] But for some reason, it keeps him back.

[26:04] He's got this long, thick, braided beard.

[26:06] And you know that in the heat of battle, that thing's getting filled with viscera and blood.

[26:11] And it would be so hard to clean.

[26:13] It seems disgusting.

[26:14] But here it looks smelly white.

[26:15] I think thematically, I think it would also make sense that perhaps Serash was kind of

[26:20] a vessel for him to pour his own battle lust.

[26:24] So he was able to separate that part of his soul into this kind of semi-separate creature.

[26:30] But it's not clear.

[26:32] Classic comedy film.

[26:34] Pardon my Serash.

[26:37] So by bonding and becoming less of a battle monster, Hora-Lu adopted the new name Godfrey.

[26:43] Sorry, a battle beast.

[26:44] Yep, it is a battle beast.

[26:46] And it looks like battle beasts from Invincible.

[26:49] He changed his name to Godfrey, and he became the he became the first consort of Queen Merica

[26:59] and thus earned the title Elden Lord.

[27:02] Of course, he's the first Elden Lord.

[27:05] Yep.

[27:06] Okay.

[27:07] And they begat a line of demigod children, the first of which were twins, Morgoth and

[27:14] Mog.

[27:15] And they don't have heads.

[27:16] As you can see, they look a little bit weird.

[27:18] They do have heads, but they're like covered in horns because they bear the curse of being

[27:23] omens.

[27:25] Omens are people who have been born with this curse.

[27:29] They're inflicted with horns growing out of themselves.

[27:33] Amongst commoners, those horns might just be cut off.

[27:36] But amongst nobles, those children are ostracized and in this case, hidden from the public and

[27:44] stuck in the subterranean shunning grounds.

[27:47] When do you play the game?

[27:49] We're not there yet.

[27:50] Okay.

[27:51] So that's Morgoth and Mog.

[27:52] They also had, not pictured, they had a third child, Godwin the Golden, who I think you

[28:03] heard mentioned in that opening cinematic.

[28:04] And they formed a family singing group.

[28:06] Now they began a series of crusades to pacify the lands between and force them under the

[28:13] heel of this golden order.

[28:16] One of the chieftains, one of the leaders of this, was a fellow god, Radagon, presented

[28:22] here.

[28:23] That's what you use to get your rads away.

[28:24] I use it myself.

[28:25] It works great.

[28:26] Yeah.

[28:27] I mean, I 100% think that's an item in Fallout, Radagon.

[28:32] So Radagon, interesting.

[28:33] This is going to be a spoiler.

[28:35] Again, a lot of this is going to be spoilers, but I feel like, again, it's not really going

[28:39] to affect your love of the game.

[28:41] So Radagon...

[28:42] Nothing could.

[28:43] How could you affect what isn't there?

[28:45] Radagon was a red-haired warrior prince, and he's set to fight and defeat a kingdom of

[28:53] sorcerers in Lyernia, led by a lineage and school of Carian sorcerers.

[29:01] And those are sorcerers that you don't eat at the restaurant.

[29:04] You take them away.

[29:05] The Carian sorcerers, exactly.

[29:08] And they fought to a standstill.

[29:11] And then, of course, they decided to broker a peace with a marriage between Radagon and

[29:17] Queen Renala.

[29:19] Now, interestingly, Radagon...

[29:22] Is this a mini?

[29:24] You're using that word loosely.

[29:26] Interestingly, Radagon is actually just another version of Queen Merica.

[29:33] Merica and Radagon are the same person.

[29:35] So it's kind of a weird thing, but it's not unlike, you know, typical mythology of gods

[29:41] changing genders and who they are, et cetera.

[29:43] Sure.

[29:44] But nobody else knows this.

[29:45] This is a secret, that Radagon and Merica are the same person.

[29:47] Reminds me of the story when Tiresias, the blind prophet, changed gender, and when Tyrese,

[29:54] the male model, became a blind prophet.

[29:57] And was very active on Twitter.

[29:59] I remember there was a period...

[30:00] where he was like being everybody's friend on Twitter.

[30:02] Yeah, there was that scene in Oedipus Rex

[30:05] where he goes to Tyrese for help in unraveling the mystery

[30:08] and Tyrese gets in touch with him on Twitter and is like,

[30:10] dog, you don't want to understand,

[30:11] you don't want to know this, Oedipus, just leave it alone.

[30:14] Yeah, leave it alone, Eddie.

[30:16] So by brokering peace with a marriage,

[30:19] they were able to bring Rinala's Glenstone Sorcery

[30:24] into the Golden Order, which is very important.

[30:26] And you're going to see, I'm going to show you

[30:28] an example of a Glenstone Sorcerer

[30:30] who have to wear these specialized masks.

[30:32] And I think you're going to recognize something

[30:34] that we're going to be talking about later

[30:35] when we talk about Zardoz.

[30:37] That's right, that's what the, they wear these helmets

[30:39] that kind of look like Zardoz heads.

[30:41] Yeah, it's like a stone, like face with long curls

[30:44] and a beard, it does look like Zardoz.

[30:45] Kind of a sadder, cuter Zardoz though.

[30:48] Yeah, the Zardoz mask,

[30:49] that's because when we're recording this episode tonight,

[30:52] we will be doing our Flop TV episode on Zardoz.

[30:54] We'll talk about that more later

[30:55] if we ever get to the ad portion of this,

[30:58] this very good, regular length mini.

[31:02] But it does look like that.

[31:03] It looks like, yes, that kind of,

[31:05] it looks like Zardoz's brother who's like,

[31:07] oh, why does Zardoz have to make such a big deal

[31:09] out of everything, you know?

[31:10] Now, before we talk about the lineage

[31:13] that is begat by Ratagon and Rinala,

[31:17] I think this is actually a really good-

[31:18] I thought we just did.

[31:21] I think right now is a perfect time

[31:23] for us to talk a little bit about our sponsors.

[31:26] So the Flop S today is brought to you by Factor.

[31:29] That's right.

[31:30] We all need to eat, folks.

[31:32] And Factor is one of the-

[31:33] We all need to eat, folks.

[31:34] Oh, God.

[31:35] Let me change this.

[31:37] Stewart's all about long pig these days.

[31:39] Yeah, yeah.

[31:40] Folks, comma, we all need to eat.

[31:42] Wait, folks are what we all need to eat?

[31:48] Okay.

[31:49] It's an important thing to understand

[31:51] that the Factor, our sponsors,

[31:53] in no way endorse cannibalism,

[31:55] which is suggested by my two co-hosts,

[31:57] and I guess me.

[31:59] Yeah.

[32:00] So eating well is an important-

[32:02] That's the Factor promise.

[32:03] You will not find any human meat

[32:05] inside of their products.

[32:06] Stewart, continue.

[32:07] Eating well during the holidays is important.

[32:09] Food is an important part of the holidays.

[32:11] And also, it can be easy to get caught up

[32:14] with doing your holiday shopping and activities,

[32:17] and you lose track of time,

[32:18] and it's hard to do your shopping.

[32:20] Well, Factor provides chef-prepped,

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[32:58] So, Factor's a big deal.

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[33:03] over who gets which Factor meal.

[33:05] My wife, Charlene, is very bad

[33:07] at finding the time to have lunch,

[33:10] and Factor provides something that I can easily give her

[33:13] and send her out the door with

[33:14] so she'll get some kind of nutrition

[33:16] in the middle of the day.

[33:17] So, if you want to be like us

[33:19] and you want to eat smart,

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[33:41] This exclusive holiday offer won't last,

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[33:46] Offer is only valid for new Factor customers

[33:49] with code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase.

[33:52] And we are sponsored in part by Quince.

[33:56] Quince, which is not just a pear-like fruit

[33:59] that you usually eat in jam form.

[34:00] It's also a clothing company.

[34:03] And you know what you're going to need

[34:04] when it's cold outside?

[34:05] Clothes.

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[34:14] Actually, Ollie, you're blessed with a fair amount of fur.

[34:17] I'm blessed with the closest thing you can get,

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[34:22] Yeah.

[34:24] Cold mornings and holiday plans.

[34:25] I also release, my body, my glands also release a grease

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[34:31] Yeah, yeah.

[34:32] Cold mornings and holiday plans.

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[35:58] The Flophouse has a few things to announce of its own

[36:00] because the Flophouse is also brought to you

[36:01] by the Flophouse.

[36:02] We are recording this on Saturday, December 6th.

[36:05] So if you were listening to this live,

[36:07] have somehow tapping into our phone lines

[36:09] or internet connections,

[36:10] you will know that tonight we are having Flop TV.

[36:13] The first Saturday in every month through February

[36:16] is Flop TV, the televised one hour video version

[36:20] of the Flophouse.

[36:21] Tonight we're talking about Zardoz.

[36:23] When this episode comes out,

[36:25] you can still watch that episode

[36:26] because if you buy a ticket,

[36:27] you get access to the recording of the show

[36:29] and those recordings are gonna stay up online

[36:31] through the end of February

[36:32] so you can watch them as many times as you want.

[36:34] This season, it's Flopsterpiece Theater.

[36:37] That's right, season three is when we're pulling out

[36:38] all the stops.

[36:39] We are watching the greatest flops

[36:41] or the most legendary flops

[36:43] or the most talked about flops of each decade.

[36:47] So, well, not necessarily of each decade,

[36:49] but you know what I'm talking about.

[36:50] So for the 2000s, that was represented in September

[36:52] by The Adventures of Pluto Nash.

[36:54] In October, it was Jack Frost with Michael Keaton.

[36:56] In November, it was Xanadu.

[36:58] December, it's Zardoz.

[36:59] And then get ready, in January,

[37:01] it's gonna be Dr. Dolittle, the Rex Harrison one,

[37:04] the one that almost destroyed a studio.

[37:06] And then in February, Plan 9 From Outer Space,

[37:08] perhaps the most famous bad movie of them all.

[37:11] Go to theflophouse.simpletics.com to pick up tickets.

[37:15] Remember, it's the first Saturday of every month

[37:18] at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[37:20] If you can't watch during that time,

[37:23] you can watch the recording, like I said,

[37:24] at your leisure, whenever you want,

[37:27] how many times as you want, until the end of February.

[37:30] So that's Flop TV season three.

[37:31] This season, we're becoming more and more professional.

[37:33] It's really bonkers.

[37:35] We got a lot more videos.

[37:36] We got a lot more presentational elements.

[37:40] I learned how to roller skate.

[37:41] Yes, you learned how to roller skate in the Xanadu episode.

[37:45] So it's really, it's becoming more and more

[37:46] like a real television show,

[37:48] and I think you're gonna enjoy it.

[37:49] That's theflophouse.simpletics.com.

[37:51] Now, if it's not enough for you

[37:53] that you get to watch us on your computer

[37:56] or television screens, you wanna see us in person,

[37:58] and you live in the Bay Area of Northern California,

[38:01] why, you're in luck, because following up

[38:04] on our successful, sold out, right, I think so,

[38:07] shows in Chicago, we're doing another live show in January.

[38:11] We will be appearing live in person on Sunday,

[38:14] January 25th, in the afternoon,

[38:16] so you can still get a good bedtime afterwards,

[38:18] at Cobb's Comedy Club, once again,

[38:20] as part of San Francisco Sketch Fest.

[38:22] We have had so much fun at Cobb's

[38:24] for San Francisco Sketch Fest in the past.

[38:25] We're very excited to be coming back

[38:26] to do another show with them.

[38:28] Dan Stewart, is it okay if I announce

[38:30] what movie we're gonna be talking about on this episode?

[38:32] If it's not only okay, I would encourage you to do so.

[38:35] Yeah, fuck it up.

[38:36] One of the movies we've been asked to do the most,

[38:39] I feel like, in my experience talking to fans,

[38:41] that's right, on Sunday, January 25th,

[38:43] at Cobb's Comedy Club,

[38:45] as part of San Francisco Sketch Fest,

[38:46] we will be talking about Master of Disguise,

[38:48] starring Dana Carvey as the titular Master of Disguise.

[38:53] It's the one where he looks like

[38:54] a big turtle man in one scene.

[38:56] If you don't know the movie, you know the turtle man scene.

[38:57] There's only one scene.

[38:58] I think it's just one scene.

[39:00] I don't think it's the second half of the movie.

[39:02] I mean, if it had been the whole movie,

[39:03] this would be the most successful movie ever,

[39:06] rather than a forgotten comedy.

[39:07] You have to believe it.

[39:08] So that's Master of Disguise,

[39:10] talked about by us on Sunday, January 25th,

[39:14] in San Francisco, live, in person,

[39:16] at Cobb's Comedy Club,

[39:17] as part of San Francisco Sketch Fest.

[39:19] Thank you so much again, Sketch Fest, for having us.

[39:21] Go to sfsketchfest.com,

[39:23] and then just click on the Schedule & Tickets link,

[39:26] so you can get tickets for us on January 25th, Sunday,

[39:30] at Cobb's Comedy Club, in 2026.

[39:35] And I also have two personal things I'd like to mention.

[39:37] I have, of course, my book,

[39:38] Joke Parmy, How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense.

[39:41] It's in bookstores now,

[39:42] where you can buy it from a website or something.

[39:44] But I'd advise you to go to your local independent bookstore

[39:46] and get it through them.

[39:47] It's How to Write Comedy,

[39:48] how I write it, how jokes work.

[39:50] I think I like it.

[39:51] I hope people like it, too.

[39:53] And also, of course, Harley Quinn from DC Comics.

[39:56] I'm still writing that every month.

[39:57] Go to your local comic book store.

[39:58] Say, make mine Harley Quinn.

[40:00] when Ellie Keelan's writing it.

[40:01] Yeah.

[40:02] If you like too many podcasts, you'll love Soundheap with John Lick-Roberts.

[40:13] It's got clips from all your favourite podcasts, such as Diary of a Tiny CEO.

[40:17] Lynne Sprague, tell me how you make your money.

[40:19] I go to the beach and I steal people's towels.

[40:23] Remember Armour.

[40:24] I remember the trend of everyone whacking themselves on the head with hammers and mallets

[40:28] when they wanted to lose weight.

[40:30] And Elty John's lobberly songs.

[40:32] I'm here today with Kiki D. Hello Kiki D.

[40:36] Hello Elton.

[40:37] There's dozens of episodes to catch up on and brand new episodes going out right now.

[40:42] So if you want far, far, far too many podcasts, then look for Soundheap on Maximum Fun.

[40:48] Boop, boop.

[40:51] Guys, should we go back to the fascinating, some would say almost too interesting world

[40:57] of Elden Ring?

[40:58] Let's travel through the fog and return to the lands between, gentlemen.

[41:02] So as I was talking, we are about to land between gentlemen.

[41:05] We are about to get to the the lineage.

[41:08] And this is these are some important figures.

[41:10] This is the lineage of Radagon and Ranala.

[41:14] Of course, their eldest child is Praetor Rikard, presented here, a a warrior, a lawmaker, a

[41:23] a, you know, an important individual.

[41:27] Their second child, even more important.

[41:30] Star Scourge Radon, a warrior without peer, the scourge of the stars.

[41:36] In fact, he is.

[41:37] He has gravitational powers so vast that the stars stop spinning.

[41:42] The heavens.

[41:44] He holds the heavens in check out of fear.

[41:47] Now wouldn't that really like fuck up everything else around if you could have that kind of

[41:52] gravitational power?

[41:53] Kind of does.

[41:54] Yeah.

[41:55] But yeah.

[41:56] It's a magic fantasy world.

[41:57] Who knows?

[41:58] Yeah.

[41:59] Again, it's a myth.

[42:00] Consider this all a myth.

[42:01] So that's Star Scourge Radon and their youngest child.

[42:04] Less than a myth.

[42:05] I'll consider it the back story for a video game.

[42:07] And their youngest child, of course, is the lunar princess Rani, pictured here, a mysterious

[42:15] figure with a really cool hat.

[42:17] That is so that is it's like an urban sombrero that's so big it's a megalopolis sombrero.

[42:22] Yeah.

[42:24] Three Pharrell hats.

[42:26] Okay.

[42:27] So that's the standard unit of hat measurement.

[42:29] Yeah.

[42:30] Meanwhile, you know, it's it's not all just having kids.

[42:32] America is continuing her crusades against the other peoples in the land between and

[42:39] beyond.

[42:40] We're not we haven't even started yet.

[42:41] So, of course, she interestingly, some of the worst actions in this these wars happened

[42:48] in her home.

[42:50] Wait.

[42:53] The shadow realm, the lands that she comes from under the scadu tree, which I think means

[42:57] shadow tree.

[42:58] I'm not sure.

[42:59] I don't know.

[43:00] It sounds like it's like a dark mirror of the arid tree.

[43:03] It sounds like a ragtime novelty hit.

[43:05] Yeah.

[43:06] And she is you and what we see sitting under the scadu tree, that kind of stuff.

[43:13] Yeah.

[43:14] So these crusades seem to be to both hide the origins and how she attained her godhood,

[43:20] but also to subjugate the horn sent people.

[43:22] And to do that, she enlisted the aid of her son.

[43:27] Messmer Messmer is a little sort of habit of saying, that's right.

[43:32] We all know.

[43:33] We all know.

[43:34] Yes.

[43:35] And like all of like all of her children, he he bears a curse.

[43:41] One of his eyes doesn't work or something.

[43:43] And he's bound to an abyssal serpent.

[43:44] Now, this is he's standing on a table that the hippie candles are on.

[43:48] Or is he?

[43:49] They put hippie candles on the floor.

[43:51] No, that's that's on the table.

[43:52] But there's probably trippy candles on the floor, too.

[43:54] This is this picture is taken inside of Messmer's at like the upper story.

[43:59] This photograph was taken at the upper story of his his like menagerie.

[44:04] He has this kind of amazing menagerie in his fortress in the shadow realm.

[44:08] OK, so let's.

[44:11] And in addition, during these crusades, also America sent Godfrey and his armies, her consort,

[44:17] her Elden Lord, to a far away land.

[44:20] And in doing so, she did to them what she did to many of her enemies.

[44:24] She stripped them of grace so they know we're no longer had the glow of the greater will.

[44:30] Why'd she do that?

[44:31] Promise.

[44:32] Well, that's that's a good question, Elliot.

[44:34] With the promise that upon dying for her in this conflict, they would return and their

[44:39] grace would be returned.

[44:40] So it's a motivator.

[44:41] Motivator.

[44:42] Yeah, exactly.

[44:43] But in doing so, it's her version of that.

[44:45] We get a pizza party on Friday if we hit these sales figures.

[44:48] Yeah.

[44:49] And these figures, this army, including her former consort, Godfrey, became the first

[44:55] of the tarnished people, people that were that were stripped of grace.

[45:00] This is sort of like ASMR for me, because I just I mean, in that there's sort of noises

[45:06] that's actually going to happen, but I mean, that's what this podcast does for a lot of

[45:09] people.

[45:10] It is a silly mythic retelling.

[45:11] So this, of course, left America without an Elden Lord, without a consort.

[45:17] So, of course, she had to marry Radhigan herself.

[45:22] Radhigan had to absolve his marriage to Rinala, which she was not happy about.

[45:27] And then America married Radhigan and they had another line of children in this case,

[45:33] the twins.

[45:34] Tell us about all of them.

[45:35] Melania, a swordswoman without peer, however, she is cursed with a scarlet rod.

[45:42] Melania?

[45:43] Yeah, kind of.

[45:44] The sword is too long.

[45:46] I'm just going to say it.

[45:47] We're all thinking it.

[45:48] Yes.

[45:49] That's how I feel when I fucking fight her.

[45:51] It's less of a sword than a fishing pole.

[45:53] Yeah.

[45:54] Yeah.

[45:55] And her twin, Mykola, the kindly one, Mykola, who Mykola, whose curse is to always remain

[46:03] a child.

[46:04] I'm most familiar with Mykola Light.

[46:05] Yeah.

[46:06] She seems to be radiating some kind of light.

[46:09] Mykola is a he in this case.

[46:11] Although, you know, it's it's questionable.

[46:14] Mykola is a child with golden hair and has the whereas his twin, Melania, is a swordswoman

[46:22] without peer.

[46:24] Mykola has the ability to make all those swordsman without peer.

[46:30] And his ability to make people love him makes him in some ways the most terrifying of all.

[46:35] Sure.

[46:36] OK, so that is the twins.

[46:39] I feel like that is that is a it is a it is an indictment of the kind of person you

[46:43] expect to spend 200 hours playing a video game that they're like, what's the most dangerous

[46:47] thing of all?

[46:48] Love.

[46:49] Mm hmm.

[46:50] I don't want to love.

[46:51] Note for the listeners at home, Ellie's disgust, disgusted, cackled, creepily before.

[46:57] Yeah, I didn't like it when he suggested 200 hours playing a video game.

[47:01] OK, so the stage is now set.

[47:05] There is a big sword at some undesignated time.

[47:10] Lunar Princess Ronnie stole shards of the rune of death, handed them out to her assassins

[47:15] and they used that to kill Godwin, the golden one of the children of one of the children

[47:22] of America and America.

[47:26] Then when realizing that all of her efforts to prevent death from infecting her children

[47:33] had come to naught, she out of anger, she shattered the Elden Ring.

[47:37] Oh, no, no.

[47:39] And disappeared.

[47:40] And the Elden Ring now shattered.

[47:43] Her offspring then fought over the shards to grab pieces of it so that they themselves

[47:48] could have a little bit of divinity, a little bit of that power.

[47:52] And that led to a great war known as the shattering, where demigod and sibling fought each other

[47:59] with their various armies, tearing the land to pieces.

[48:03] Pictured here, we see we see Melania, the Blade of Mycola, battling Starscourge Radon

[48:09] in the swamps of Aeonia.

[48:14] And it is after in the aftermath of this great war that we enter the game as a tarnished

[48:21] champion, a champion, a tarnished of no renown and no background.

[48:28] Will this tarnished become Elden Lord?

[48:30] We shall see.

[48:31] Will we win the game?

[48:32] The the the world that you enter is a is a difficult one.

[48:37] Lands like Limgrave, Limgrave, where you begin the game is more traditional, is your more

[48:51] traditional fantasy setting.

[48:53] And Stormvale Castle is your first major obstacle in Stormvale.

[48:57] You have to defeat the the least of America's descendants, the one, the least powerful,

[49:05] the smallest, of course, Godric the Grafted, a weak man who sought power by grafting limbs

[49:12] and body parts from other people to make him more powerful.

[49:15] Well, he can carry that big axe that's made him stronger for that.

[49:18] Further on, we have Khalid, which bears the scars of Melania and Radon's battles, scarred

[49:27] by the Scarlet Rot residing within Melania that has poisoned the land and the people

[49:33] that live there, including Starscourge Radon, who has been so horribly infected by the Scarlet

[49:40] Rot that he now rides around on his it looks like dead horse that he continues support.

[49:47] It's this tiny horse.

[49:48] It looks like a regular man riding a chihuahua.

[49:51] Well, that he like animates and keeps supported through his gravity powers and he wanders

[49:59] the battlefield.

[50:00] Devouring the corpses of foe and friend alike.

[50:02] Yes, go on.

[50:03] Support this horse through his gravity powers.

[50:05] Was it still that small?

[50:07] It was that big.

[50:08] It's a pretty cool horse.

[50:11] I mean, that horse was praying for death

[50:13] because he had to carry this enormous guy on his back.

[50:15] And side note, this is one of the great boss fights

[50:19] in the game, is fighting Starscourge Radon.

[50:21] Of course, further on in Mount Gelmir,

[50:24] where Praetor Reikard fought the capital,

[50:29] it is now a corruption of his lofty ideals

[50:32] and is now, you know, is filled with funeral pyres

[50:35] and judgment poles and things like that.

[50:38] Reikard himself.

[50:39] Kelly Reikard.

[50:40] Kelly Reikard himself.

[50:41] He's busy directing First Cow.

[50:44] Has allowed himself to be devoured

[50:46] by the god-devouring serpent,

[50:48] thus becoming one with that serpent

[50:51] in an attempt to devour all the other gods

[50:54] and become the greatest of all.

[50:55] Pictured here, you can see he's like a weird snake man

[50:58] with a weird snake face.

[50:59] It's like in the later Dune books, you know.

[51:01] Yes, a lot like the later Dune books.

[51:03] Now, Praetor Reikard refers to himself

[51:05] as the Lord of Blasphemy.

[51:08] Further on in Leyendell the Capital,

[51:10] it bears the scars of multiple sieges.

[51:12] I feel like that's the kind of thing

[51:12] somebody who throws really big parties

[51:14] would call himself in a moment of grandeur.

[51:16] I mean, it certainly sounds

[51:17] like a fucking cool X-Men villain.

[51:20] Leyendell the Capital is in ruins,

[51:24] although there seems to be some kind of hidden force

[51:26] controlling everything.

[51:28] A veiled monarch, if you will.

[51:30] And stolen from his Hylig tree,

[51:34] Mykola's cocoon is now missing.

[51:36] Absconded by whom?

[51:38] But is that just his physical self?

[51:40] Because Mykola's spirit travels the Shadow Realm.

[51:43] Now, wait, so this is-

[51:44] Seeking some form of godhood.

[51:45] Go on.

[51:46] This is a cocoon,

[51:46] because it looks like a big risotto ball.

[51:48] It does.

[51:49] Yeah, very skinny.

[51:50] And you can see Mykola's twisted little arm

[51:53] kind of sticking out of that.

[51:54] And the throne that looks like a human pelvis.

[51:56] It does look like a human pelvis.

[51:58] I mean, it makes sense.

[52:00] It makes sense in the game.

[52:03] If ever you wanted to see a giant risotto ball

[52:06] on a human pelvis in a kind of space acropolis,

[52:09] this is the thing.

[52:10] With a branch-looking arm sticking out of it.

[52:12] Sticking out, going with its fist raised like,

[52:14] yeah, here we go.

[52:15] Now, having listed the foes that you are to fight,

[52:18] these demigods who bear the shards of the Elden Ring

[52:20] that you need to attain if you want to approach

[52:23] the Ered Tree and declare yourself Elden Lord.

[52:27] You have allies.

[52:29] A mysterious woman,

[52:30] a mysterious maiden named Malina approaches you

[52:33] with designs of her own.

[52:35] So she's asking the question,

[52:36] I see the subtitles,

[52:37] have you heard of the Finger Maidens?

[52:39] Which, that seems like a website that-

[52:40] I have heard of the Finger Maidens.

[52:43] Because you, a lowly tarnished of no renown,

[52:45] begin the game maidenless.

[52:48] So you, she offers to serve the role of Finger Maiden

[52:52] as a tarnished champion,

[52:54] is often accompanied by a Finger Maiden

[52:57] to guide them on their quest of grace.

[53:00] It sounds like someone who remembers

[53:01] that the Handmaiden was based on Fingersmith

[53:04] and just like mixed it all up.

[53:08] And in addition, there's a,

[53:10] there's a grouping of other tarnished champions

[53:13] who reside or meet in a place called the Roundtable Hold.

[53:18] A council of champions-

[53:21] A Roundtable with like knights around it?

[53:23] Uh-huh.

[53:23] Who would have thought of such a thing?

[53:25] And this is a, this is a place where the,

[53:28] of course the other tarnished,

[53:31] they have a vow of peace

[53:33] where they will not fight each other.

[53:34] And they're, all of them serve as either allies

[53:38] or inevitably into some form of-

[53:39] Or alligators.

[53:41] Yeah, in some form of enemies.

[53:42] Most, there's betrayals and other exciting things.

[53:46] All of this is, all this leads into your quest

[53:49] to become the Elden Lord.

[53:50] And depending on how,

[53:52] how you kind of deal with the various allies in your world,

[53:56] it will determine kind of what age,

[53:58] what runes you're going to use

[54:00] and what age you usher in upon ascending the throne.

[54:04] Will it be an age of order or an age of dung-eater-ness?

[54:07] Who knows?

[54:09] It's very exciting stuff.

[54:10] Now what would that entail, Stuart,

[54:11] an age of dung-eater-ness?

[54:12] Well, the dung-eater is just trying to corrupt

[54:14] the entire world.

[54:15] So it's an age of corruption.

[54:16] So he ushers in an age where all children are born

[54:20] as horrible, twisted omens with horns growing everywhere.

[54:24] And all children eat dung.

[54:26] In a way, the idea of the dung-eater-

[54:27] I mean, they kind of do.

[54:28] The dung-eater's an interesting figure

[54:29] because he is easily the worst villain in the game.

[54:33] And you're like, is it just because he eats poop?

[54:34] Well, it's part of the idea is that

[54:36] in some Japanese mythology,

[54:38] the soul resides within the anus.

[54:40] So what he's doing is he's literally

[54:43] corrupting the souls of his victims.

[54:45] If I was a soul, that's certainly where I'd hang out.

[54:48] That certainly seems like a prime position

[54:50] in the human body.

[54:50] Well, it's a safe place to hide

[54:52] because no one's looking in there, you know?

[54:53] Yeah, it's in the sub-basement, basically.

[54:56] So guys, we have reached-

[54:57] It's like when they're in the Death Star in Star Wars

[54:59] and they go to the trash compactor room.

[55:01] Exactly.

[55:02] So now that we've reached the end of

[55:04] Stuart's lore wrap-up of Golden Ring,

[55:06] how do you guys feel?

[55:07] Are you guys excited about a movie adaptation?

[55:10] Does it make sense for an easy movie adaptation?

[55:13] I completely forgot that we were talking

[55:15] about a movie adaptation.

[55:17] I mean, it might be the only way

[55:19] that I retain any of the stuff

[55:22] that was just told to me.

[55:23] You know, like, my lifelong learning

[55:25] has continued today, Stuart, with you,

[55:27] you know, presenting this seminar on a thing

[55:29] that I don't need-

[55:30] Sharing the thing I love.

[55:31] I don't need to know about.

[55:33] I've already forgotten.

[55:34] I mean, but what do you need to know about, really?

[55:36] Well, there's certain things.

[55:37] And I'll say that putting together

[55:40] this little lore wrap-up in PowerPoint

[55:43] made me want to play the game again.

[55:45] Another $200.

[55:47] I'm curious about the movie.

[55:49] Alex Garland is an interesting choice

[55:51] for something like this.

[55:52] It makes me wonder what the style

[55:54] or the focus will be of it.

[55:56] But it really does run the risk

[55:58] of doing what happens to a lot of fantasy stuff

[56:01] when it becomes adapted into films,

[56:03] which is that whatever is special about it

[56:06] that the fans like gets drained.

[56:08] It reminds me of that Dark Tower movie

[56:10] that we watched years ago for the podcast,

[56:12] where I was like,

[56:13] now I want to read the Dark Tower books

[56:14] because I got to see what's in them

[56:16] that this movie didn't have.

[56:17] What kind of spark of inspiration

[56:19] or excitement or whatever, you know?

[56:22] I mean, Stuart, I like Alex Garland

[56:25] more consistently than you,

[56:27] but I think if there is someone

[56:29] who maybe will keep the weirdness in

[56:34] and will make it a priority to keep the weirdness in,

[56:38] it seems like it would be him, perhaps.

[56:40] Yeah, I mean, certainly Annihilation,

[56:42] while not a direct adaptation.

[56:45] Yeah, it's still very weird,

[56:47] and even Men has, let's say, some weirdness to it.

[56:51] It is, definitely.

[56:52] I think there's a, my worry would be

[56:54] that it might lose a certain legibility.

[56:58] I think that the part of this,

[56:59] I think one of the things that is so successful

[57:01] about, for instance, the Lord of the Rings movies,

[57:03] and the Lord of the Rings story is not as outwardly weird

[57:06] or bonkers in some ways,

[57:08] is how, what an amazing job Peter Jackson does

[57:12] of keeping the audience focused on

[57:14] who are the heroes and what is their story,

[57:16] and all the world-building that happens around it

[57:18] is in service to that, you know?

[57:20] As opposed to later in the Hobbit movies,

[57:23] where it feels like he kinda gets sidetracked somewhat,

[57:28] and I worry that a movie of this

[57:32] will feel like a two-and-a-half-hour version

[57:35] of the presentation you just gave to us, Stuart,

[57:37] where it's a lot of names and a lot of references to things,

[57:40] but there's not a lot of blood there,

[57:42] let's say, not a lot of feeling.

[57:43] And this also suggests a common video game problem to me,

[57:47] where this is not true of all modern video games.

[57:51] There are some that, I think,

[57:52] make the main character more of a distinct character,

[57:55] but a lot of them, the main character is, to some degree,

[58:00] a void for you to project yourself onto,

[58:02] and that's a problem, then, if you're making a movie

[58:05] where you need a compelling center.

[58:08] Well, usually, they pick a young apprentice or something,

[58:11] or someone who doesn't fit in with the others

[58:13] and has to prove themselves.

[58:14] I mean, they go with one of those, you know?

[58:16] It's interesting,

[58:17] because the central character is kind of a void.

[58:20] You obviously make some choices in it,

[58:23] but it's not like you're having conversations.

[58:25] You never hear the voice of your character.

[58:28] You're never choosing conversation options.

[58:33] So it is a thing where it's like,

[58:36] I use the term myth,

[58:38] and obviously, I'm not saying it has the same level

[58:40] of complexity of something like Greek mythology or something,

[58:44] but the idea is that the story kind of works more

[58:50] in that vein, which I don't know if it necessarily

[58:53] will work as a movie with real stuff,

[58:57] because it's not like,

[59:00] it doesn't feel like you're walking around a world

[59:02] that is populated with villages and people and stuff,

[59:06] like people have to live.

[59:08] It's rather this feeling of,

[59:10] this is this hero's quest traveling

[59:12] through a ravaged world,

[59:15] and you're not worrying necessarily so much

[59:17] about the nuts and bolts of the how of it.

[59:19] What's the economy of this place?

[59:20] Yeah, I mean, there's,

[59:22] and I feel like it works best when you're-

[59:23] Is the Trade Federation angry

[59:25] about the taxation of outlying routes?

[59:27] But I think it works best when you're dealing

[59:29] with these big ideas and big passions and personalities,

[59:34] rather than the nitty gritty of the realness

[59:39] of the world, I guess.

[59:40] Yes, I agree.

[59:41] I think there can be a mistaken apprehension

[59:45] that a world is all you need for a story, you know?

[59:50] And certainly, I've had projects where they're always like,

[59:52] world building, we gotta do the world building.

[59:54] What's the world we're building?

[59:55] And it's like, you don't really, to be honest,

[59:58] you don't need to build that much of the world.

[1:00:00] is you need to build the characters

[1:00:01] and then you gotta show what elements of the world

[1:00:03] are important to their story

[1:00:05] rather than spending a lot of time explaining junk.

[1:00:08] And it feels like a lot of times video games,

[1:00:12] when they're adapted,

[1:00:13] they're adapted the same way you'd try to adapt a book

[1:00:15] when really you wanna do it the same way

[1:00:17] that they adapted Pirates of the Caribbean into a movie

[1:00:20] where they're like, we gotta come up with a story

[1:00:22] that fits into this world of pirates.

[1:00:25] And the smartest thing they did with that

[1:00:27] was the two things of,

[1:00:28] as much as Johnny Depp is a problematic figure,

[1:00:30] that they were like,

[1:00:31] let's let Johnny Depp's character be a funny figure,

[1:00:33] like a charismatic, funny figure

[1:00:35] rather than a kind of bland hero

[1:00:37] and not necessarily make him the center of it.

[1:00:39] But also, let's add like skeletons and ghosts into it,

[1:00:43] which is not part of the original Pirates of the Caribbean

[1:00:45] ride and so it's a, I wonder,

[1:00:47] maybe Alex Garland is the type of person

[1:00:48] where they can be like,

[1:00:49] okay, well, here's the world of Elden Ring,

[1:00:51] now what am I gonna introduce in it

[1:00:53] that is an interesting story

[1:00:54] or that makes use of that world

[1:00:56] to connect with an audience somewhere

[1:00:58] as opposed to like,

[1:01:01] I feel like there was that World of Warcraft movie

[1:01:05] from years ago, where it was like-

[1:01:07] Do we, we did that.

[1:01:08] I don't-

[1:01:09] No, no, no, we talked about it for a long time,

[1:01:10] we never got around.

[1:01:11] We talked about it a lot and we never did it,

[1:01:12] but where it was like, what I've seen of it,

[1:01:13] it's like, oh, okay, like there's just not,

[1:01:15] there's just not really interesting stuff going on.

[1:01:18] But, you know, or like the,

[1:01:20] what they did, the opposite of what they did

[1:01:21] with the Minecraft movie,

[1:01:22] where there's a version of the Minecraft movie

[1:01:24] that is a serious movie about the Minecraft world.

[1:01:28] And I think they understood, they're like,

[1:01:30] there's no, there's no story here.

[1:01:31] Like, there's not, there's nothing going on here.

[1:01:33] Let's just do like a goofy, crazy thing.

[1:01:35] And I remember I talked to somebody I work with

[1:01:37] and they were like, ugh,

[1:01:38] they just had Jack Black do whatever he wanted

[1:01:40] and be silly.

[1:01:41] And I was like, yeah, that was the exact right,

[1:01:42] exact right move,

[1:01:43] because there's nothing there otherwise.

[1:01:44] You know, it's, bring these people in

[1:01:46] and don't take it seriously.

[1:01:47] So maybe the Elden Ring movie will be really funny.

[1:01:49] I don't know.

[1:01:50] Maybe they just won't take,

[1:01:51] it'll be like a Holy Grail type thing, you know?

[1:01:53] And now that Dan,

[1:01:54] Dan was just showing off his new fancy mouse,

[1:01:57] I think he's ready to play some fucking Elden Ring here.

[1:01:59] Let's fire it up, Dan.

[1:02:00] Let's download that.

[1:02:01] Don't forget to also buy the DLC.

[1:02:04] I guess that goes the rest of the day before Flop TV.

[1:02:07] What's a DLC?

[1:02:08] A day, it's going to be at least eight days.

[1:02:12] So this has been a Flop House mini.

[1:02:14] Thank you so much for listening to me spout nonsense

[1:02:16] that I spent way too much time,

[1:02:18] both playing and researching.

[1:02:21] God bless you, sir.

[1:02:23] This has been really fun.

[1:02:24] I like getting to share silly stuff

[1:02:25] that I think is cool with my friends.

[1:02:28] We are part of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network,

[1:02:31] and there's a lot of other silly fun shows on there,

[1:02:33] so you could check them out and support them.

[1:02:35] This show has been lovingly edited

[1:02:38] and listened to multiple times, I'm sure,

[1:02:40] by Alex Smith, our producer,

[1:02:42] who is known as HowlDotty on the internet.

[1:02:44] He makes music.

[1:02:46] He does all kinds of great stuff.

[1:02:48] He is a-

[1:02:48] Hangs out with a possum.

[1:02:49] Hangs out with a possum.

[1:02:50] He is an avid twitcher.

[1:02:52] I think that's the term.

[1:02:54] So you should go check out-

[1:02:55] He's a witcher.

[1:02:56] He's an avid witcher, yeah.

[1:02:57] Oh, he witches.

[1:02:58] He does not have the ponytail for that, sir.

[1:03:01] So for the Flop House, I have been Stuart Wellington.

[1:03:05] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:03:07] I've been Elliot Kalin,

[1:03:08] and I can't wait to have the 200 hours to play Elden Ring.

[1:03:11] Uh-huh, you should.

[1:03:13] Bye!

[1:03:14] ♪♪

[1:03:19] Maximum fun.

[1:03:20] A worker-owned network.

[1:03:22] Of artist-owned shows.

[1:03:23] Supported.

[1:03:24] Directly.

[1:03:25] By you.

FH Mini 142 - Respect Your Eldens

Transcript

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