With a game as both rich in lore and extremely opaque storytelling as Elden Ring, it's bound for many misconceptions to be born within the fanbase.
- The fanbase almost universally groups the various abstract supernatural entities strongly hinted to be fighting for control over the Lands Between note under the umbrella term "Outer God". In the game itself, this term is only ever applied to four beings: the Frenzied Flame, the Scarlet Rot, the Formless Mother, and Destined Death. The Greater Will in particularly very well may be distinguished from that group. Miquella seeks to "ward away the meddling of outer gods" (Miquella's Needle description). He does this by using the power of unalloyed gold ("gold" being synonymous with the Greater Will), a tree that is an offspring of the Greater Will's Erdtree and guarded by its servants, and an army that consists entirely of soldiers using Greater Will Holy incantations. While there is evidence that the Greater Will might be an Outer Godnote , it's far from conclusive.
- The nature of the Tarnished's Resurrective Immortality has been confused by many, including on this very wiki, as being due to the removal of the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring; usually this misconception is also paired with the idea that everything and everyone is immortal and the reasons enemies respawn is because nothing in the Lands Between can die. While a somewhat understandable mistake on first glance due to how vague the Rune of Death's actual role is, it's explicitly wrong nonetheless. Going by some item descriptions (like the Aristocrat Set) it appears that most people have Biological Immortality, i.e. they do not die of natural causes, but they 100% still can be killed: there are mountains of corpses in nearly every section of the map (including for people killed right before you got there like at the Village of the Albinaurics who are explicitly identified as dead), entire quests revolving around mercy killing certain characters, still-active burial practices for the mounds of dead such as the Warrior Jars, etc. Enemies do respawn, but when they respawn they also respawn with new equipment for you to loot and new runes to collect, making it clear that (like pretty much every open world game ever) these enemies are just supposed to be entirely new people/creatures taking the place of the slain ones from areas off-screen in between time skips. This is reinforced by the fact that non-generic enemies (e.g. bosses and minibosses) never respawn - because they're actually dead and not replaceable by an effectively infinite number of identical substitutes. The Tarnished being able to respawn in-universe is because they've been granted that ability by Marika's Guidance of Grace, and not only is that same ability not granted to other people, but it's not even universal among Tarnished - most Tarnished just die when killed, and characters allude to even the player character possibly losing their immortality after enough revives (though whatever that limit is, we apparently never reach it). Miyazaki himself clearly distinguished between the granting of Marika's grace to the Tarnished, which confers resurrective immortality, and the removal of the Rune of Death, which simply "removes fated death from the Elden Ring."
note There are other characters (like Malenia, Rykard, and Blaidd) who do have their own forms of Resurrective Immortality, but again, these abilities are treated as unusual and tied to specific divine connections they all have - rather than being a blanket attribute of every being in the setting. - The Greater Will is often characterized as an interventionist god presiding over the Golden Order. Except the Greater Will is never worshipped as a god by anyone, at any point, in any script of the game, and is actually seldom mentioned in the game in general. Its only confirmed active actions being sending the Elden Ring and with it the Elden Beast to the Lands Between and banishing the Nox. The Golden Order draws upon its power, but said Order is explicitly a personality cult created by and dedicated to Marika, not the Greater Will, and according to Brother Corhyn it was founded on the principle that she is the one true god.
- Many theorists, including in this very wiki, assume that a lot of the decisions of the Golden Order, such as the enslavements of the graceless, banishment of the Omen and religious crusade on the rest of the world, are a result of the orders of the Greater Will directly ordering Marika to do such things... except again, there is no indication of this, and the Greater Will itself makes its presence known so little that even its own messengers don't fully know what it wants or intends. For all intents and purposes, most of the authoritarian and dogmatic traits of the Golden Order are the fault of Marika. The same applies to the Elden Beast which is at times depicted as the true Man Behind the Man of Marika's empire - except again, this has no basis in the lore as its only confirmed actions are the relatively justifiable punishment of Marika for shattering the Elden Ring (which caused untold chaos and death) and potentially sealing the Erdtree to prevent anyone from becoming Elden Lord.
- Marika and Radagon are sometimes thought to be the same person using two different identities, leading to a lot of Alternate Character Interpretation of them. The problem with this is that various sources point towards Marika and Radagon being entirely separate people with their own thoughts and agendas, most prominently with how Marika's plans seem to go against Radagon's own at certain points. While how exactly this works isn't established (whether they are two beings inhabiting the same body, "aspects" of the same god or something else entirely), they definitely aren't the same exact person despite sharing a body.
- A popular fan theory is that the Greater Will's Erdtree hijacked the power of another entity called the Primordial Crucible. But the primordial crucible (which is never capitalized in the game's script) is, very explicitly, just another name for the Erdtree, specifically referring its early state prior to Marika beginning her Order. The descriptions of the Crucible Knight armor, Siluria's Tree, the Godskin Set, and the Aspects of the Crucible incantations all make that clear, with the latter's descriptions even saying that they're "ancient Erdtree incantations" and "manifestations of the Erdtree's primal energies"note and the Godskin set straight-up calling it "the crucible, the Erdtree in its primordial form." Even if you never read a single item description, the game makes it obvious because casting crucible incantations produces the exact same sigil◊ as casting Elden Stars (which as the signature technique of the Elden Beast is basically as GW-derived as it's possible to get). There was nothing to hijack because the primordial crucible was always just a manifestation of the Greater Will's power (and always a World Tree), hence why it's depicted entwined with the Elden Ring in the engravings in Farum Azula and why Siluria's Tree, said to be modeled on it, looks like a tree. However, contributing to the confusion is that the Ancestor Spirits, who are nearly always associated with the exact same characteristics and phenomenon innate to the Crucible and Erdtree (the growth of horns and cycle of life), are outright said to have existed before it in the lore of their associated items, while the lore of the Deathbirds throw a further wrench in it by revealing that they were the ones who managed that cycle before the Erdtree existed in turn, showing that life existed before its arrival. In the end, it's possible there may never be a definitive answer.
- Related to the above is the theory that the Erdtree is a parasite built on top of the so-called Greattree. There is no such thing as the Greattree; it's a mistranslation of "great tree roots", i.e. the roots of the Erdtree. Even it being a mistranslation is arguable; it's more of a typo, applying unnecessary capitalization in two item descriptions (Root Resin and Deathroot) to make a generic descriptor seem like a proper noun. In context "Greattree" is pretty obviously just referring to a generic big tree and (in some cases) the Minor Erdtrees that you find Root Resin at, and indeed 大樹note is translated as either "great tree" or just straight-up as "Erdtree" in English far more often◊ than it is as "Greattree." There is some in-game evidence of a precursor to the modern Erdtree, but this evidence suggests that it was almost certainly an earlier form of the same tree (with the Erdtree regrowing from the same root system after the old one was destroyed) rather than a separate entity, and there is essentially no support for the idea of the Erdtree parasitizing its predecessor. Popular YouTuber VaatiVidya is mostly responsible for spreading this one in his first video on Elden Ring lore; in a later video he would correct himself and apologize for the error, but by that point the misconception had become widespread and it lives on to this day.
- Godrick being Marika and Godfrey's son is a commonly accepted view within the community. He is of their lineage, but various pieces of lore imply he was merely descended from them as opposed to being their son. This can be attributed to some implications that he was around before Godwyn was killed, which combined with Morgott calling him "Godrick the Golden", suggests he was around for a long time. The most probable theory is that he was actually Godwyn's descendant (likely with a few generations of distance) and he simply inherited his progenitor's seat as 'The Golden' after Godwyn died.
- Radahn "conquering" the stars is very often believed and stated to be because he was protecting the Lands Between as a whole from any Eldritch Abomination from the stars. The base game is somewhat vague on his reasons for "conquering" the stars, but various pieces of lore, enemy placement, and items explicitly debunk holding back aliens as the reason, as there are already several creatures from the stars present during the game in fresh craters, and zero new ones appear after defeating him, nor does his death and the dispelling of his star-freezing field cause any damage to the Lands Between in general aside from one meteor hitting an empty patch of forest in Limgrave (cleanly removed from any area of human settlement). In fact, we very clearly see that his death causes all the stars (except for the aforementioned one) to race away from the Lands Between, as if he was imprisoning them by pulling them closer to the earth. On top of that, Radahn's former lieutenant Jerren (upon learning you serve Ranni) tries to convince you to help him mercy kill Radahn because doing so will unfreeze the stars and "surely set Ranni's fate into motion" in a content tone, which would be a very odd attitude to have if doing so would bury the Lands Between in monsters. Some text, like the description of the Telescope, imply he did so simply to protect the power of the Golden Order (as freezing fate means astrologers can no longer seek the stars' guidance), which he's known to be a big supporter of (e.g. his idolization of Godfrey, the giant Erdtree sigil on his cape, the Golden Order military statue literally looming over Sellia). The only time Radahn is mentioned in any way protecting something is a vague mention of his actions 'holds Sellia secure', but it isn't fully clear what that meansnote , and beyond that, the game doesn't outright state why he "conquered" the stars.
- A lot of fans claim that Radahn kept holding the stars back in the present after 'challenging' them in the past in order to stop Ranni from reaching her destiny. While this is possible, a lot of fans act like it's explicit canon when it isn't confirmed whether or not it's the case. As stated above, Radahn's friend doesn't seem to mind Ranni's destiny being unsealed and none of Ranni's allies hold any ill will towards Radahn. However, said friend also expresses knowledge of the fact that Radahn's star spell is hobbling Ranni before anyone else does (Iji later scolding himself for having to be reminded of it when you talk to him after Jerren), meaning that regardless of whether or not it was his goal, Radahn definitely knew he was stopping the fates of Ranni and others.
- Many players assume that Radahn's horse is canonically named Leonard. However, this name is based entirely on information in the game's files and is not confirmed in any actual in-universe lore, with Radahn's horse only being referred to as his "faithful steed."
- It's commonly thought that the catalyst for Malenia's "bloom" against Radahn was her removing or breaking the Unalloyed Gold Needle in her body. This is not only never stated or even so much as implied anywhere, it rather clearly contradicts what we're shown and told about how the process works in Millicent's quest. In short, both Gowry and the Millicent's Prosthesis item description state that what causes the Rot to come out is the vessel's will being broken by despair, as the Rot needs to be actively resisted; the needle, while it does slow down the Rot's damage to the vessel's body and brain, does nothing to prevent this on its own. Gowry emphasizes that without the despair element, Millicent would never "flower", and the idea that she'd eventually fall to the Rot's influence even with the needle is the main reason why Millicent decides to die before that can happen. Both endings of the quest make this is as explicit as possible: in the "bad" end Millicent is killed with the same needle still in her body and blooms into a Rot flower due to her despair regardless, while in the "good" ending she takes the needle out to no immediate result and subsequently leaves no bloom after she dies, because her will survived to the end.
- A quick shot in the story trailer has made many players think that Malenia impaled herself in a Suicide Attack against Radahn to trigger the bloom. However close inspection reveals that she's actually shoving the blade into Radahn and embedding nearly its entire nine-foot length into his body, with only a few inches from the other side going into her own. It appeared to be a pretty effective blow too, as Radahn is subsequently combat-incapable for the twenty plus remaining seconds of the trailer (before the cut to black), drops both of his weapons, and is forced helplessly on his hands and knees. The reason Malenia was bleeding was not because she turned the point on herself, but because she braced the handle against her shoulder to make sure the thrust would work, and she only had to do that because the blade was part of the arm she'd just lost and lacked a proper hilt. A spotlight of the◊ trailer◊ from Vol 286 of the magazine CG World both shows this more clearly in the animatics (plus in a less-textured version of the same scene with a different camera angle) and includes multiple storyboards with handwritten notes directly stating what's doing: pushing the blade into him using her bodyweight.note
- The dark endings to sidequests are often attributed to George RR Martin's influence, particularly given that his other most famous work (and especially its TV adaptation) has frequently been accused of using character deaths and disturbing subject matter for shock value. However, by all accounts Martin's main contribution to the game was the bulk of the backstory, with both Miyazaki and Martin stating in interviews that the latter had essentially no input on anything post-Shattering aside from lore notes on whatever enemies they sent him concept art of. This interpretation also ignores the fact that plenty of previous games directed by Miyazaki also had notably tragic endings to many of their subplots- in fact, Elden Ring has more explicit happy endings to its quests than previous Miyazaki-directed games.
- Many Elden Ring players have cited the circle of large stone swords sticking out of the ground near the starting area as a memorial to Kentaro Miura, the creator of Berserk, who died relatively shortly before the game was released and who Hidetaka Miyazaki has noted as an influence; it's not uncommon for players to take screenshots of their characters at the circle or to leave messages near it to "pay respects." This is pure speculation, and no one on the development team has stated it to be such. Not only that, but the circle by the starting area is only one of several such monuments that appear throughout the game, none of which appear to have any particular significance. Although swords planted in the ground as gravestones do appear in Berserk, the ones in Elden Ring bear a much stronger resemblance to the sculpture Sverd i fjell in Norway, in keeping with the Norse themes seen throughout the game.
- There have been many attempts to translate the Latin lyrics of some of the boss OSTs, with the most popular probably being that of the Godskin Apostles. Said translation has been taken as gospel by many in the community, despite the person doing it admitting to not speaking Latin◊. The problem with this and other efforts like it: the boss songs can't be translated, because none of them have legible lyrics. They're vaguely Latin-sounding gibberish. Like in Dark Souls 3, From used a computer program to generate a bunch of syllables meant to sound cool, then had the choir sing them; the syllables occasionally seem to sound like actual Latin words, but are nonsense. Thus any "translation" is simply what a fan thinks sounds "close enough" to the sounds (which requires a huge amount of stretching, as half the time the songs are just moaning or have illegible syllables completely drowned out by the orchestra), as filtered through their desire to relate said sounds to the boss's lore. This is also why none of the fan translations make any sense according to Latin grammar and sentence structure. This actually became a big enough misconception that mainstream outlets commented on it. The only Soulsborne game to have actual meaningful lyrics in boss themes is Bloodborne (altough with a grammatically incorrect latin to fit the song's flow), and the difference between something like this theme from Bloodborne and the meaningless vocals in other games is noticeable.
- It's sometimes claimed that Miquella's Needle is based on the Greater Will's power of Golden Order Fundamentalism since Miquella's soldiers use Golden Order spells and it has 'gold' in its name. While Miquella was very much a Golden Order Fundamentalist (to the point he invented spells for it), the Needle was explicitly not powered by Fundamentalism. Its stated Fundamentalism couldn't cure Scarlet Rot so Miquella invented Unalloyed Gold to do so. It is also unclear if it's power even comes from the Greater Will, though Miquella's strong Holy association means it's certainly believable for this to be the case. The source of its power isn't stated in the game, leaving it up to player speculation.
- Some players are under the impression that the default ending, the Age of Fracture, is pro-Golden Order, pro-Greater Will or is a return to the status quo pre-Shattering, as the Tarnished doesn't make any particular changes to the Elden Ring, unlike the other Elden Lord endings; however, there is no indication of this in the game proper, as the player character had to commit a cardinal sin, unleash Destined Death, and kill a high-ranking servant of the Greater Will to even get the ending in the first place. Ultimately, the Age of Fracture is an Ambiguous Ending that makes the future of the Lands Between more uncertain and fluid, with the only certainty being that the Erdtree doesn't shine as brightly as it used to.
- The Age of Fracture ending is the result of having found/used exactly zero mending runes. You can reach this ending by only acquiring two of the Great Runes, the bare minimum that the Two Fingers require of you to allow you entry into the Royal Capital. This ending can't be a return to the status quo since the Elden Ring is nowhere near its former shape and power.
- It's not an uncommon preconception in the community, even in this very wiki, that Crumbling Farum Azula was used as a time-locked prison for people who committed cardinal sins, as your character is sent there immediately after burning the Erdtree - but there's no indication of this in-game at all; Farum Azula is a mausoleum that belonged to the beastmen that served the Ancient Dragons and it's simply their domain, unrelated to Marika's Golden Order. Similarly, people assume that Farum Azula was where Destined Death was originally sealed pre-Nights of the Black Knives, as that's where we found it in the present, but there's no proof of this either, it's entirely possible that Maliketh chose to go to Farum Azula and seal himself there after the Shattering, since it was a place very few people knew existed and even fewer knew how to reach (and even then it didn't seem to work, as Bernahl and the Godskin Duo seem to have been attracted to Farum Azula to obtain Destined Death). The idea of it as a prison seems to have gained traction because it would explain why you teleport there after burning the Erdtree, an event which the game proper never actually explains other than Melina's prophecy that "the one who walks alongside flame shall one day meet the road of Destined Death".
