Between Meanings The Impossible Sun Elden Ring Lore

>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=h6LsOHNUqlU

Let's ponder a mystery most players don't even realize they should be wondering about - what's wrong with the sun? This might seem like a minor detail at first, but as we keep pulling the thread, we'll find some shocking lore implications. • I had to balance how technical the discussion gets and cut a lot to keep it approachable, so for the very detail oriented, additional notes will follow below (and maybe get reposted to a comment, because I doubt anyone actually reads the description). • Topics: • 00:00 - Intro • 02:06 - There's a Sun in Elden Ring? • 05:12 - The Sun Path • 09:06 - You Tried Your Best, Copernicus • 13:44 - The Light that Blinds • 20:03 - The Golden Star • And now for the Prophesied Detailed Notes: • 1. On The Sun Path: So I mention that being in the Northern or Southern hemisphere in our world will tilt the path of the sun. In my original script, I said that this will cause the sun to rise in a specific direction, but it turns out that the direction of dawn and dusk depends on the combination of latitude and season. In the winter, the sun's path is lower in the sky, so the sun's path doesn't span as much of the sky. That means that if you're in the Northern hemisphere, it will rise SE, spend the day in the Southern sky, and then set SW. In the summer, however, we see more than half of the path of the sun, and since it's tilted, that means that in the Northern hemisphere, we'll observe it rise NE, move to the Southern sky during the day, and then set NW. On an equinox, it will rise due East and set due West no matter what latitude you're at (because the tilt of the Earth isn't toward or away from the sun on those days). Anyway, the point stands that you will never see the sun rise NE and set SW, and this was too much to explain in the video. • 2. On Magnetic North: So not only did I have more about magnetic North in my script, I actually fully recorded and edited another two minutes of discussion about it, but ultimately decided that it was too distracting from the main points I was making in that chapter, so I ended up cutting it (this is why the line The point is might sound a little out of place in Chapter 3, it was originally the wrap up to a whole side conversation). So to recap, the primary point I make is that historically virtually all cultures have defined cardinal directions by the movement of the sun, so that should be our assumption for Elden Ring, as well. • However, it is still possible in a fantasy set to set North by some other standard, including magnetic North. For those who aren't aware, the magnetic North Pole (where compasses point) isn't in the same spot as the geographic North Pole (what you might call True North, based on the axis of rotation of the planet). In fact, magnetic North moves every year, because the iron core of the earth is partly liquid, so a bunch of complex fluid dynamics happens as it spins that causes wobbling and bobbling. Nonetheless, we shouldn't treat magnetic North as totally arbitrary, either, because it is still causally linked to the rotation of the Earth, and presumably there are limits as to how far from True North the magnetic pole can wander. I don't know enough physics to figure out where that limit is, but as far as I'm aware, the furthest it has been observed is about 20 degrees from geographic North. In order for Elden Ring's sun path to be explained by a disparity between True North and Magnetic North, the angle of declination to magnetic North (angle from our perspective between the two Norths) would be about 40 degrees (as my cited commenter noted). In our world, 40 degrees is the distance between the North Pole and Germany, and the actual displacement of magnetic North is likely larger than that in order to explain a 40 degree angle of declination observed by us, unless that displacement is exactly orthogonal to the path between us and geographic north. So if magnetic North is displaced by 50 or 60 degrees from geographic North, we're entering the territory of treating magnetic North as totally arbitrary, and disconnected from the forces that actually create the magnetic field in our world. • Of course, we don't even know if Elden Ring's world has a magnetic field, and when you're dealing with magic and fantasy, nothing is impossible, it's just a question of how coherent an explanation is and how much it explains versus how much it requires you to hand-wave. • 3. Shape of the World: There is one other thing I don't explicitly address from the comment I put on screen, which is the Devourer's Scepter. It specifically says that it depicts a snake eating the world, and the world it depicts appears spherical, so that's a solid point in favor of the LB being on a spherical world, whether or not rotation is the primary cause of heavenly motion. • Anyway! As always, thank you all for your support and engagement. I suspect this will be less controversial than my last episode, but who knows.

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