Bonfireside Chat 280: Leyndell, Ashen Capital
Added 2023-09-24 17:47:48 +0000 UTCI'll miss you guys :(
Comments
My read of Horax Loux is that he’s always been the barbarian and his shadow had to literally combine with him in order to add the godly aspect of the greater will. When he rips of serosh he is throwing away the greater wills touch and going back to his roots. Also I loved Nepheli Loux she was the first NPC that helped me with a fight that I actually wanted to take along for a ride and did everything I could to get her a good ending. So having her there as a new lord of Stormveil helping me fight her Golden lineage ancestor felt fuckin sweet.
Ben Lambert
2024-10-15 23:29:05 +0000 UTCLate to the party just wondering what happened to episode 281? I love your endgame episodes and can’t find this one
Mat Benson
2024-08-15 21:05:59 +0000 UTCHolassity <3
Quin Tutor
2024-03-14 23:31:55 +0000 UTCAnd I know you like calling it "shounen bullshit", but not every shounen protagonist is a Goku. Just call it "Goku bullshit". :p
DarthEnderX
2023-12-07 06:24:38 +0000 UTCGary doesn't like warriors, honor or mecha? Ban this man from all sci-fi conventions, before he beats up some poor Klingon cosplayer!
DarthEnderX
2023-12-07 06:21:53 +0000 UTCChanges of pace are fun and disarming especially in a game as long as this. If he were the final boss I’d understand your complaints a lot more. As it is I found it super entertaining.
Aaron Hedick
2023-11-11 15:54:30 +0000 UTCcan't imagine the restraint it took for hoarah loux to have a transformation where his shoes didn't explode off
Sid Menon
2023-10-01 00:09:33 +0000 UTCYou can entirely avoid Elden Stars, but it’s not very intuitive. I had to look it up so I could finish my RL1 run, since Elden Stars was killing me every single time it got used. It takes anticipating the stars around half health, being positioned correctly in front of EB, then running past and behind the boss as the stars come at you. A small number of the projectiles might hit you, just not enough to do notable damage, since the tracking sends the stars careening behind you, unable to catch up if you stay sprinting in the opposite direction. There’s apparently also a method to prevent the EB from using Elden Stars with one of the fist weapons I believe, but limiting people to one weapon to avoid damage doesn’t sit right.
Lucas West
2023-09-28 23:52:44 +0000 UTCI think everything one might need to know about Godfrey is that when you get his armor and put it on, you realize that he's been wearing shorts the whole time. Shorts.
Blake Waller
2023-09-28 15:09:53 +0000 UTCThe 3 things I was most looking forward to Gary and Kole covering this season: 1. Radahn boss fight 2. Gary’s take on Hoarah Loux 3. Patreon comments on Gary’s take on Hoarah Loux It’s possible that my opinion of Hoarah Loux was influenced by the fatigue of being 155 hours into the game when I first came across him. My main complaint about him is that (and I freely admit that I am not good about reading every item description I pick up) it felt like he showed up out of absolutely nowhere. The previous 155 hours were spent interacting with all the other characters from the opening cinematic, but then Wrestleman shows up for the first time after I’ve done literally everything else in the game and announces himself like it’s just him and me competing for the throne. He really struck me as an afterthought and, in addition to being a really hard fight when I just wanted to finish the game, lore-wise it felt (again admitting maybe I missed some previews earlier in the game) like he just hopped in after all the hard work was done. I really think it would have been more interesting to never meet him, as if he had taken his own completely separate path to try to become the Elden Lord, or even disregarded that idea entirely.
Abe
2023-09-28 00:24:34 +0000 UTCVery nice! I had similar thoughts but couldn't find the words.
EzekialJeans
2023-09-27 21:06:21 +0000 UTCKinda long take on Godfrey and his place in the story, I feel that the game is not communicating that he’s a “good” or “cool” guy. Godfrey is consistently portrayed as someone who only lives for war, and the game definitely doesn’t portray war as some noble affair, though a few characters do. As soon as all external threats were dealt with, Marika exiled him, presumably because he’d end up causing problems in a more peaceful Lands Between (even with Serosh on his back). Godfrey/Loux represents the primal, wild Crucible era of the world, for the sake of victory he’ll forsake any semblance of dignity because, in the end, he’s nothing but a fighter. In some ways, it’s kind of pitiful. The reason I appreciate it is largely due to how characters in the game view Godfrey and his legacy. He’s upheld as this noble warrior, who pathetic wretches like Godrick hope to emulate, and who Golden Order suckers like Radahn adore. Yet, when we finally face him, this key foundational figure for the Golden Order turns out to be more wild and crazed than the beast on his back. It’s another false image presented to obscure the true nature of the leadership of the Golden Order, showing how it’s more of a gilded order; shiny on the outside, rotten in the middle.
Lucas West
2023-09-27 17:07:19 +0000 UTCYeah I get thinking he’s an odd duck out. I just don’t think that accounts for all of the disdain on display here. It seems more like you are bringing your own dislike of wrestling/noble warrior tropes into this rather than Elden Ring did something super egregious. Yeah it’s a big moment at the end of the game. It’s also only half a boss fight. It’s not a big deal IMO. I know you won’t agree on this and that’s fine.
Screwball Johnson
2023-09-27 14:49:57 +0000 UTCI do not think y'all could have possibly been any clearer that you were speaking only to your personal taste and how this fits into the game for you and not passing judgement on wrestling or people who like it. Also hilarious to me that we got an all-time belly laugh from Gary at Kole's joke predicting exactly this sort of thing.
Chapel Collins
2023-09-27 12:54:01 +0000 UTCFun fact! The Elden Beast may be modeled after the Hallucigenia, an animal that preceded arthropods. It's an interesting wiki dive
Jonathan Scratch
2023-09-27 01:32:13 +0000 UTCAs a regular consumer of "shonen" media I will say that the "guy who loves fighting" and that's it has REALLY fallen out of style...at least in the good ones. If that character shows up in something it's generally a marker of lack of quality. Hell, that trope/archetype is best when actively mocked. Jujutsu Kaisen has a guy like that who rants about fighting and whatnot and he's an absolute joke. Everyone around him groans at his shit and somebody beans him directly in the face with a baseball mid-spiel and everyone just says "nice pitch" and moves on. Just wanted to speak up because I KNOW some irritable weebs will cry foul and be generally shitty. Whereas i seek to inform, and because i find that trope boring as shit, too. Only listen to the good weebs like me.
Jonathan Scratch
2023-09-27 01:22:11 +0000 UTCWhy is Gideon Busey? Does he call someone a "butthorn?"
EzekialJeans
2023-09-27 00:26:30 +0000 UTCIt's very weird to have a 20th century wrestler in a fantasy game. It'd be the same thing as having a military sniper, to me. It's also part of the climax of the game, which, for me, carries a lot of majesty, and I don't think there's any majesty in Horrah. It's not as simple as "Game contains weirdos, so all weirdos are appropriate." -GB
Duckfeed.tv
2023-09-26 23:14:31 +0000 UTCI find Gary's extreme repulsion to Hoarah Loux very strange. Like I'm not into wrestling either but damn. These games have all kinds of weirdos and assholes that you aren't meant to like. If you really hate the warrior trope then can't you enjoy taking him down and rejecting his warrior ways?
Screwball Johnson
2023-09-26 20:57:36 +0000 UTCI completely agree with what was stated about Godrah Loux in episode - this seemed like a character dumped in from another game, and not in the positive way that something like Astel felt totally out there. Astel gave me a feeling of "Oh man, ANYTHING can happen in this!", whereas Hourah gave me a feeling of "Oh man, maybe ANYTHING shouldn't happen" (insert Ian Malcolm here) However, I only have positive memories attached to that fight, for silly reasons. So, I have spent over 12 years as a pro-wrestler, and was still active in the ring at that time. As soon as the first grapple came along, I just completely lost my shit - a mixture of laughing myself silly over the absurdity of it, whilst proclaiming how much I had trained for this exact showdown. Who could have guessed that, after hundreds of hours of swordy-spelly-shieldy fun, the way into the Erdtree would be through the artform I'd trained in for over a decade? Certainly not me. I'd also just like to share my favourite description of the Elden Beast to raise a giggle - "an MRI of the Loch Ness Monster"
Andrew Parker
2023-09-26 18:41:02 +0000 UTCI think that Godfrey is meant to be an insufferable toxic masculine archetype. A feature of this game’s lore seems to be about female characters struggling against domineering males or suffering under them. This is a theme that GRRM likes as well. Godfrey was the one who Marika had the power to send away when she tired of him. So this whole thing is basically like “Look. Now you know why she sent him away. Could YOU stay married to this bro?”
Erik Heard
2023-09-26 15:47:26 +0000 UTCThinking about it further, I wonder if whoever's in charge of doling out grace (just gonna go with Marika) actually timed it so that a shitty, disposable Tarnished did most of the dirty work so that Godfrey didn't have to. Judging by his tender response to Morgott, he might not have actually had it in him to kill his own children.
Drew Weing
2023-09-26 00:53:57 +0000 UTCThe Fingerslayer Blade you give to Ranni is also made from a corpse, and shares some small resemblance to the design of the Sacred Relic Sword
Lucas West
2023-09-25 23:38:46 +0000 UTCBecause there are other avenues of conversation than comments and we receive them, guy.
Duckfeed.tv
2023-09-25 23:08:29 +0000 UTCI get the dislike for Horah Loux....Wrassler, but it inspired me to roll a Barbarian specializing in grappling.
Jeremy Espinoza
2023-09-25 22:49:03 +0000 UTCWhy does every podcast host go on extended rants about how their audience is going to be dickheads about something they say and then you check the comments and everyone is just politely agreeing with them?
Ben Crowley
2023-09-25 19:54:33 +0000 UTCFor me, If the Godfrey to Horah Loux cutscene was just tweaked ever so slightly to be less goofy, it would go down much smoother. It really clangs. At least he doesn't have a gigantic butt like the asylum demon though. That's pretty darn goofy, too. EDIT: oh and I would say the reason we never run into Godfrey before this is because (I assume) the guidance of grace has been leading him and the player character around in different directions until now. In the cutscene when he's holding Morgott, you can see his grace emerging from Godfrey and it's pointing towards the player character, meaning...it's finally time for you two to meet.
EzekialJeans
2023-09-25 19:30:31 +0000 UTC"Elden Beast got me actin' up!" HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA amazing
Eric Nagurney
2023-09-25 15:09:46 +0000 UTCCongrats on making it to the end, btw!
Drew Weing
2023-09-25 14:09:40 +0000 UTCTalking about where Godrey was the whole time - I'm pretty sure the "Long March" referred to in the game was Godfrey leading the Tarnished out of the Land Between, not back to. Then at some point in the outer realms he got killed and strung up on a tree. The rest of the Tarnished dispersed to various places, and died one by one. As for when Godfrey was resurrected by Grace? The timeline of Tarnished resurrecting/returning to the Lands Between seems pretty scattered. Some have clearly been there for a long, long time, like Gideon and the rest of the old Roundtable-associated Tarnished. But others have shown up just recently, like Roderika, and ourselves, of course.
Drew Weing
2023-09-25 14:09:05 +0000 UTCI didn’t realize that Radagon became the Elden Beast’s sword. Pretty interesting parallel to Rykard and his people sword. In his serpent form, he’s also shaped similarly to the Elden Beast (though maybe that’s a stretch). Pair that with Miquella’s Haligtree trying to become the new Erdtree and there’s perhaps some interesting theming with the new upstart orders taking the shape of the old.
Richard Cochnar
2023-09-25 13:50:01 +0000 UTCI don’t intend to be snippy but you have to understand that neither of us think we’re better than you because we don’t like a thing you don’t like. You’re reading more unkindness than we’re actually putting out. We’re different people than you and we don’t have an anti-wrestling agenda, we just have microphones. - KR
Duckfeed.tv
2023-09-25 13:44:59 +0000 UTCWe like different stuff that’s equally as stupid. Make fun of us for that instead of making moral judgements of us for our analysis, please. - KR
Duckfeed.tv
2023-09-25 13:40:05 +0000 UTCIt’s not surprising they generally, and Gary specifically, have a pretty haughty dismissive attitudes.
TheGrizz
2023-09-25 13:35:52 +0000 UTCMan, Elden Beast is such a bummer of a final fight. Agreed that the Radagon fight should have ended it!
Naveen Sivakumar
2023-09-25 13:24:00 +0000 UTCAlso this takes nothing away from Kole’s argument but there is a song which is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard and has a long kazoo solo in it, it’s called “Ducks on a Pond” by The Incredible String Band
Violet Sweet
2023-09-25 12:53:05 +0000 UTCI’m fully on board with Gary’s critique on the Warrior. I too hate the “lives for fighting/wants to be the greatest” archetype and find them completely alienating as characters. I also just find Hoarah Loux to be a supremely annoying fight. The worst thing is that his fighting style is thematically appropriate. Except for having just freed himself from the constraints of a cat but then spending most of the fight pawing at me.
Violet Sweet
2023-09-25 12:28:29 +0000 UTCI have been waiting in anticipation to finally hear the takes on Hourah Loux…. WARRIOR!!!! 😅👌
Mitchell Turner
2023-09-25 10:16:36 +0000 UTCWith the Hourah Loux reveal there is one aspect I really like about it, in that it has the same thing other phase 2's have (like Malenia's) where the character says "fuck it" and does something considered bad to try desperately to win. Often when you get to phase 2 with a Shardbearer in Elden Ring, you learn how craven that character can be. His phase 2 music and his fighting style also evoke a sort of barbaric wild animal thing that is cool to me. But I have to agree that overall the tone is SUPER weird and it makes me laugh rather than leaving me in awe. It's not the same sort of "oh shit" moment as Godrick amputating an arm and grafting the dragon, or Morgott vomiting forth a curse and blaming you, or Malenia desperately embracing the rot and acknowledging the horror of it as she decides it's time to use it against you. I think it would have been a much more effective moment if Godfrey didn't seem like he was excitedly playing to a crowd.
Emily K (EmK Ultra 64)
2023-09-25 08:24:38 +0000 UTCHahaha i just réalise now Hoarah Loux = Mickey Rourke Gideon Ofnir = Gary Busey
Jonah Guibbert
2023-09-25 08:19:18 +0000 UTCI don't think they were saying wrestling is inherently bad just because the tone of it didn't fit the game. I don't think saying "sushi doesn't go with ice cream" is a condemnation of sushi nor ice cream. It's just acknowledging that the two flavors clash.
Emily K (EmK Ultra 64)
2023-09-25 08:02:40 +0000 UTCI wouldn’t sweat it
Randomsome
2023-09-25 04:59:47 +0000 UTCIt's pretty whack to me how y'all shit on pro wrestling so much. Y'all can't appreciate there might be something more to it? I assume you haven't watched anything since 90s WWF. And that's fine, you don't need to love it, but pro wrestling is vast and has some of the best storytelling of any medium I've ever seen (and that's not a joke). It's super weird to be that dismissive of it and not even allow for the room that maybe there's a reason to like it and maybe there's more to it than pure nonsense. It's like saying "wow, you like video games? Well Sonic 1 sucks so idk how you can like that crap". It's extra strange coming from guys with podcasts that do deep analysis and critique of video games, which is another medium that's (still) frequently dismissed as kiddie bullshit. I liked the juxtaposition of going from fighting a bunch of monsters and magic users to a guy that's strong enough to just use his hands. It is a break, but it's not that hard to buy into the concept - I think it's a cool trope when someone gets stronger by tossing their weapon away because their body is the real weapon, and that doesn't feel more outrageous than any of the other tropes in the game. Also yes seeing wrestles in other media does make me happy.
Jon Telles
2023-09-25 04:22:47 +0000 UTCI personally like the juxtaposition of Godfrey’s careful speech with the directness of his other side. As someone who is good at rp’ing a barbarian in dnd but not so good at cleric or wizard, i think there’s something to the chaotic neutral attitude of a well performed raw barbarian (warrior).
JackelZXA
2023-09-24 23:07:23 +0000 UTCWanted to mention that in addition to being huggable, I think Elden Beast is partially inspired by the final form of the Great Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke.
adastra.cor
2023-09-24 19:49:12 +0000 UTCTotally get the dislike of Hoarah Loux………………….WARRIOR! But I take it as a meta-joke about FromSoft bosses. Generally in a second phase bosses conjure huge weapons, armor, spells to menace you with, but good ol Loux just rips his shirt off. Is the very end of your game, potentially at the dramatic climax, a good time for a weird in-joke? Probably not! But they went for it
mwh
2023-09-24 19:28:28 +0000 UTC
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