Arbor-type: Marika/Radagon dual nature = Duchamp's "arbor-type" (both genders in one body)
Tree-person: "Arbor-type" literally means tree-person = Erdtree (arbor = tree)
Crucifixion: Marika crucified/suspended on the Erdtree = Bride crucified on the arbor apparatus
The descent: When you finally reach Marika at the end, she drops/descends down from her crucified position, exactly as Duchamp described the Bride's descent in his notes
Primary identification: All Tarnished = The Bachelors (seeking the Bride)
Cemetery of liveries: Duchamp called the Bachelors "a cemetery of liveries" (dead servants in uniforms) = The Tarnished are literally undead warriors in armor, perpetually dying and resurrecting
The cemetery made visible: Multiplayer bloodstains/messages = the cemetery made visible and interactive
36 million dead: 36 million dead warriors (players) simultaneously existing = the cemetery functioning
Infinite cycle: All Elden Ring playthroughs are part of the infinite cycle through multiplayer/lore integration - millions of Tarnished simultaneously attempting to reach the Bride, making Duchamp's conceptual infinite Bachelor machine literally functional
The closest shot: Vyke = Duchamp's "shot that got closest" (Duchamp fired nine paint-dipped matches from a toy cannon at The Large Glass; one got closer than all others)
Two Great Runes: Vyke got two Great Runes, made it to the foot of the Erdtree, closest to becoming Elden Lord but failed
Symbolic reference: Vyke is a minor character with no speaking lines - the only reason for his cover placement is this symbolic reference
Three Mending Runes: Three Tarnished who create Mending Runes (Goldmask, Dung Eater, Fia) = the three nets in The Large Glass
Processing function: The nets capture/process information from Bachelors and feed transformed data to the Bride = Mending Runes process philosophy/experience and transform the Elden Ring/world
Oxidation: The Malic Molds in The Large Glass were originally painted red but faded to gold/yellow over decades due to oxidation
Suppressed red: The Golden Order originally included red (Giants' flame, Crucible, Radagon's red hair, red lightning) which was suppressed/faded to create pure gold aesthetic
Visual aging: The visual aging of The Large Glass = the political suppression of red from the Golden Order
System awareness: Gideon figures out the system is designed for eternal struggle
Eternal delay: "Marika has high hopes for us to struggle onwards unto eternity" = understanding the delay is intentional and the cycle perpetuates forever
Static knowledge: Gideon tries to stop you because he needs the world to stay static to remain "all-knowing" - change destroys his identity
Meta-reference: Possible reference to Anorak "the All-Knowing" from Ready Player One (Halliday's avatar) - meta-commentary on puzzle-hunt narratives
Communication system: Cipher Pata weapon = the encoded messages/signals that the Bride (Greater Will/Marika via Milky Way/Elden Beast) sends to the Bachelors (Tarnished/Malic Moulds)
Domain connection: Represents the communication system between upper and lower domains
Pataphysical representation: The entire magic system (Magic, Faith, Arcane) is a pataphysical representation of Frazer's system in The Golden Bough, portraying a world where sympathetic magic is literally true
The pataphysical move: Frazer documented how humans BELIEVED magic worked (but it didn't). Elden Ring creates a world where those beliefs ARE literally true. The "false" science Frazer described IS the operating physics of the Lands Between. Pataphysics: treating imaginary solutions as real.
Game runs on Frazer's logic: Elden Ring's mechanical systems operate on the logic of sympathetic magic, not physics
Law of Regression = Sympathetic Magic: The Golden Order's Law of Regression ("the pull of meaning; that all things yearn eternally to converge") IS Frazer's sympathetic magic itself: the secret sympathy, the invisible ether, the force that makes things act on each other at a distance
Law of Causality = Magical Structure: The Law of Causality ("the pull between meanings; that which links all things in a chain of relation") describes how sympathetic magic structures the world into chains of connected, distinct meanings - Order imposed on the raw sympathetic force
Homoeopathic Magic in crafting: Like produces like. Bloodgrease on a sword makes enemies bleed MORE, not less. In reality, adding blood to a wound helps it clot, but in Frazer's logic, blood produces blood. Fire Grease produces fire. Poison produces poison.
Contagious Magic in relics: Things once connected remain connected. Marika's Scarseal (a braid of her hair) grants holy protection because it was once part of her body. Remembrances retain the power of defeated demigods through the contact of combat.
Frenzied Flame = Regression unchecked: The Frenzied Flame's goal to melt all life into One is sympathetic magic (Regression) taken to its terminal point - pure convergence without the structuring force of Causality
Windmill Village War-Dance: In Frazer's Golden Bough, Thompson Indian women danced while their husbands were at war, using hooked sticks to symbolically pull them from danger. At Windmill Village, women (celebrants) dance endlessly while a Godskin Apostle with a hooked weapon (Godskin Peeler) stands at the apex. If the celebrants are wives of the Tarnished, they perform the same sympathetic magic - but the ritual never ends because the war never ends.
Three Ages as damage types: Frazer's three stages correspond to Elden Ring's three damage types: Age of Magic (commanding nature through hidden laws) = Magic/Sorcery; Age of Religion (petitioning higher powers) = Faith/Incantations; Age of Science (return to knowable law) = Arcane/forbidden knowledge
February 2024: Miyazaki said in February 2024 there's "a small element that has not yet been discovered"
User interpretation: "So, whether that's up to user interpretation or up to just further investigation and playing, that's something I'm looking forward to"
When not if: "I think it's a question of when and not if, but there may be something small still missing"
The small element: Glass Shards = the small element everywhere that nobody saw
Two paths: The discovery requires "user interpretation" (viewing it as art) OR "further investigation" (finding the connections)
Ready Player One: This discovery mirrors the plot of Ready Player One (creator hides ultimate secret in game, outsider with no resources finds it through deep knowledge of creator's influences)
Exact parallel: The parallel is so exact it may be intentional (Gideon = Anorak the All-Knowing)
Puzzle-hunt structure: Miyazaki may be telling players through the game structure itself that this is a puzzle-hunt narrative
Shearer validation: Rhonda Shearer (world's foremost Duchamp scholar, discovered readymades weren't real) validated this theory
Three hours: She spent 3 hours discussing it and confirmed the connections are real
New medium: Though she felt Miyazaki doesn't have anything "new" to say about Duchamp (but that misses the point - he's saying something new about games and extending Duchamp's work into a new medium)
Dimensional progression: The Large Glass depicts a 4D concept compressed to 2D (static glass panels); Elden Ring depicts the same 4D concept compressed to 3D (explorable space)
Approaching 4D: Only through interactive 3D media can you approach/represent the 4D concept of the Bride in unreachable dimension
Actual infinity: The multiplayer creates actual infinity (not just conceptual) - millions of Bachelors simultaneously existing
Experienced delay: The delay can only be experienced (not just observed) through gameplay
Functional waterwheel: The waterwheel can only truly function through actual player deaths/attempts
Necessary medium: Video games were the ONLY medium that could complete what Duchamp started
Art that had to be a game: This is art that HAD to be a game - proving games aren't just "also art" but necessary for certain artistic expressions
Meta-statement: By creating The Large Glass as Elden Ring, Miyazaki makes a meta-statement: video games themselves are "bachelor machines" (Duchamp's term for mechanical systems of desire/repetition)
All games: All video games operate as bachelor machines - players as bachelors, games as brides, endless loops of desire and futility
Revealing the medium: Making this explicit in Elden Ring = revealing what the medium actually IS philosophically
Perpetual desire: Every video game ends with a bride/princess/goal - but reaching her never truly satisfies, the player remains a bachelor
Explicit statement: Elden Ring makes explicit what all games do implicitly - the bride at the end perpetuates desire rather than ending it
BioShock parallel: This is the same statement BioShock Infinite was attempting to make about games involving rescuing a woman from a monster/father figure - Songbird as the father/monster (just as Big Daddy was in the original BioShock)
Paradise of Bachelors: Herman Melville's "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids" - the first part describes a roundtable of former mighty warriors now reduced to has-beens and posturing, directly paralleling the Roundtable Hold
Structural duality: The duality in Melville's story (paradise of bachelors / tartarus of maids) mirrors the structure of bachelors below / bride imprisoned above