Evan Picket
Staff Writer
December 17, 2024
Disclaimer: Spoilers for Elden Ring, Bloodborne, and all their DLC’s
Elden Ring is a game that needs no introduction. The open-world RPG Soulsborne game has already become massively popular in just two years. Between winning Game of the Year in 2022 and selling 25 million copies globally, director Hidataka Miyazaki and writer George R.R. Martin have created a truly enthralling experience. Across The Lands Between, players face a multitude of brutally challenging bosses and a sprawling hidden story with a myriad of characters. However, one character and his story stand out to me more than any other: The Ever-Brillant Goldmask. In this piece, I will defend his story and ending, while examining the philosophy behind them.
However, Elden Ring is a massive game, so to avoid throwing readers into the metaphorical deep end of FromSoftware storytelling, let's go through a quick rundown of everything relevant to Goldmask and my thesis. Elden Ring’s main ruling powers are the Elden Ring itself, the Gods, their Demigod children, and the Golden Order they rule. The Elden Ring is a physical manifestation of the laws of reality and can be altered to fundamentally change said reality. Queen Marika and her husband Radagon are the main gods of The Lands Between, and her demigod children also have a large amount of power. Finally, the Golden Order Markia establishes acts as the main governance and religion of the world, being founded after Marika removed the rune of death from the Elden Ring, preventing death. It worships mainly her and an Outer God named the Greater Will, representing order. Outer Gods are similar to the Old Ones of Miyazaki’s Bloodborne, however, instead of a desire for children, the Outer Gods represent different ideologies.
For a time, the Golden Order kept peace in The Lands Between under its strict caste system and genocides, but this peace was soon destroyed. Ranni, one of Radagon’s children, grew to despise the Golden Order. She would end up formulating a plot to become a new god herself, by killing Godwyn the Golden, Marika’s first son. This caused not only an undead plague but also sent Queen Marika into madness, and she would shatter the Elden Ring, leaving the world as a war-torn wasteland.
Now with that out of the way, Goldmask comes into the picture. He is seen in both the game’s intro and the character of Brother Corhyn, a devout religious follower of the Golden Order. Both revere him as a master scholar from lands afar, devoted to Queen Marika’s guidance and the Golden Order. Yet when Goldmask is finally seen, he looks nothing as he is described. Goldmask is lanky and tall, with shriveled, gray skin that appears like it's been in the sun for far too long. He wears white rags on his shoulders, barely held together by a dull string. His limbs are adorned with brass rings and sleeves, although they have been dulled and rusted over time. Lastly, a brilliant and gleaming golden mask covers his face, with a dozen tiny eye holes sticking out.
While unimpressive, his design is a brilliant one, setting up his character perfectly. Firstly, it's a contradiction of expectations. Goldmask is described as a noble, brilliant philosopher from afar. Yet he wears almost nothing but torn rags and a few dirty, golden bracelets. The only thing noble about him is his namesake: The golden mask he adorns on his face. According to its item description, “Its striking design represents both the brilliant inspiration that once shown upon him, and the vision of a ring that he will surely find at the end of his pursuit.” Through this, Goldmask’s mask takes on a new meaning. It hides his face because his face is not as important to him as his goal. To Goldmask, he is the blazing ring he searches for, or at least, a vessel for it. The goals of Goldmask are more important to him than himself, explaining his otherwise ragged, minimal attire. His physical form has no value in comparison to his goal, represented by the mask. Through his character design, an idea of who Goldmask is as a person can be constructed. In fact, the idea of enlightened individuals with minimal attire can be traced to Greek philosophers like Aristotle and Diogenes, although this will be expanded on later.
At first, it is difficult to get much out of Goldmask, being a mute who is always deep in scholarly contemplation. Later in the game, Goldmask is found in Leyndell, the Golden Order’s capital at the foot of the Erdtree. Here, according to Brother Corhyn, Goldmask has discovered someone in his contemplation who has broken his train of thought: Radagon, Second Elden Lord of the Golden Order.
Goldmask’s story and quest are pinned around Radagon, so bringing attention to him is important. Radagon was the founder of Golden Order Fundamentalism, a more accepting version of Marika’s faith. He was originally married to Rennala, Queen of the heretical glintstone sorcerers of Raya Lucaria, but would remarry to Marika for an unknown reason. This would cause his kids with Rennala to grow resentful, Ranni being one of them.
What makes Radagon important? Well, in Goldmask’s questline, a spell can be used to discover Radagon and Marika were in actuality, the same beings contained in a singular body. While the specifics are unknown, this revelation is still incredibly important to the story of Goldmask. Its emphasis is explicit with a semi-audible gasp from Goldmask, almost breaking his vow of silence. Goldmask is clearly understanding something unknown to the player until later.
Next, Goldmask is in the forbidden, snow-trotted lands of the Mountaintops of the Giants. Here, Goldmask has purposely assumed a new pose: The Golden-Order Totality pose. Rather than pointing towards the looming Erdtree, Goldmask now extends both his hands outwards, resembling the letter T. In fact, the player also gets this pose after telling Goldmask that Radagon is Marika, making a connection between this pose and Goldmask’s revelation. Keep this in mind for later.
Brother Corhyn is also here, but he has started to find doubt in the Noble Goldmask. He says Goldmask has a “suspicion in the holism of the Golden Order”, and Corhyn begs him to alleviate his concerns. However, Goldmask fingers remain still, indicating Corhyn’s assumptions are correct. Both men are having a crisis of faith.
The very last time the two are seen in the penultimate area of the game, the Ashen Capital. As Leyndell burns from the player’s actions, Brother Corhyn is found now openly decrying his former idol, naming him a heretical fool, seeking to supplant the golden Order with another. After this interaction, Corhyn disappears and is never seen again. Goldmask himself is found dead, leaning against the bottom of a cliff wall, still in the pose of Golden Order Totality. In his possession, is an item known as the Mending Rune of Perfect Order, used to unlock one of the game’s six endings.
At first, many will find nothing of note in Goldmask’s story, but there is a tremendous amount that can be gleaned about him, Elden Ring’s themes, and philosophy as a whole. The most important part of this mystery is the Mending Rune of Perfect Order. Mending Runes are specific runes gifted by three different characters: Goldmask, Fia, and Dung Eater. These runes can mend the broken shards of the Elden Ring according to a specific ideology, and unlock three of the game's endings. However, the ending Goldmask provides is only one of six possible endings to Elden Ring. How does Goldmask’s Age of Perfect Order compare to the others?
In the case of the Mending Rune of Perfect Order, it is described as “Rune discovered by the noble Goldmask. Used to restore the fractured Elden Ring when brandished by the Elden Lord, [...], The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment.” What this translates to is that the fundamental issue in the world of Elden Ring is how the Gods who rule it are the same or lesser in moral standing than the people they rule. In practice, this means the Elden Ring will be solidified and unable to be shattered, indicated by how the Rune appears as a shining ring shielding the Elden Ring.
Because of the vagueness of the description’s phrasing, it is important to not misinterpret what this means. Some in the community have interpreted this as meaning Goldmask takes issue with the fickleness of men themself and wishes to have free will removed, or that Goldmask wishes to expand the Golden Order’s control to total. This is incorrect, as what Goldmask seeks to correct is not the fact-free will can cause conflict, but the fact that Gods with so much power shouldn’t be granted such freedom and volatility in emotions when the consequences can be so disastrous.
The game’s standard ending, Age of Fracture, features the player character, The Tarnished taking over the fractured Golden Order and mending the Elden Ring, without doing much else. This ending isn’t overtly bad, but there's no support structure for the world. The Elden Ring is still very vulnerable to being shattered and its laws redefined. Goldmask is obviously better in the way he actually fixes things. His age has the Elden Ring become solidified and unbroken, preventing others from breaking it and taking its shards to become fickle Gods.
The other two Mending Rune endings also aren’t nearly close to competing with Goldmask. Firstly, I don’t think it’s needed to explain why trusting a torturing murderer imprisoned in a sewer named “The Loathsome Dung Eater” is a bad idea, but I will cover all our bases. His ending involves turning all future-born people in The Lands Between into Omens and cursing them, to remove disparity between groups and make all equal. Now at first, this doesn’t sound too bad, despite who it comes from, but this ending is misleading. First, its description says it was “gestated” by Dung Eater rather than how Goldmask “discovered” his. This shows his rune is a direct product of who he was, and is subject to bias. Goldmask, on the other hand, found his Mending Rune, making it an object of universal truth. Secondly, being an Omen in Elden Ring doesn't just suck because of the mistreatment by Marika’s Golden Order, being an Omen sucks in general. Omens are humans who have been cursed by the now-extinct Hornsent to have crucible powers flow through their blood and horns grow all throughout their bodies. In the fight against the Omen King Morgott, he screams in pain whenever he starts using his crucible blood, implying it causes him great pain. Another Omen character, Mohg, has one of his horns piercing his left eye, resembling the babirusa, whose tusks will grow until they pierce the brain and kill the hog. So everyone being transformed into Omens isn’t the equality Dung Eater thinks it is, but a lot of pain and suffering. Finally, the word curse in relation to the Dung Eater has a very specific meaning in Elden Ring. When first meeting Dung Eater, the spirit-tuner Roderika will inform she hears wailing, screaming spirits around Dung Eater. This is a tidbit to what happens to souls around Dung Eater, they become trapped in infinite pain, never to re-incarnate or die a true death. Now since the rune is called Mending Rune of the Fell Curse, and is a reflection of his ideological wishes, it is not a stretch to assume Dung Eater is going to inflict this on everyone, which is very much worse than Goldmask preventing the fickleness of Gods causing suffering.
The other Mending Rune, The Mending Rune of the Death Prince, is given by doing Fia the Deathbed Companion’s quest. It is once again described as being “gestated”, so it is still subject to Fia’s own bias, in comparison to the impartial discovery by Goldmask. The rune describes how “it will embed the principle of life within Death into Order, [...], The Golden Order was created by defining Destined Death. Thus, this new Order will be one of Death restored”. This description presents two contradictory fates for The Lands Between, neither addressing the root issues. First is an order where natural death is restored. This may seem nice, as removing Destined Death was of the fickle decisions of Marika, and would lead to the undead plague. However, this does nothing to prevent the Elden Ring from shattering once more and more Gods gaining powerful fickleness in Marika’s place, making Goldmask the superior option. The other option is that Those Who Live in Death become a natural part of The Lands Between. This is even worse, as not only are Those Who Live in Death inherently aggressive, but they are created by the corpse of Godwyn, who is rotting The Lands Between from the inside out, and his followers seek to make him a new god. This will not only create a new fickle leader but one who is a literal living cancer seeking to infect all life. The Goldmask ending beating this is no challenge at all.
The first of the game's two non-rune endings is the path of the Frenzied Flame. The Frenzied flame is an outer god represented by thirsting fire and the Three Fingers. The flame represents a last resort for The Lands Between. If the world is ruined, why not burn it all down and build a new one? It's not helped that this is the main theme of Miyazaki’s previous work, the Dark Souls series. However, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Frenzied Flame is. As said by companion Melina, “It is chaos, devouring life and thought unending. However ruined this world has become, however, mired in torment and despair, life endures. Births continue. There is beauty in that, is there not? If you would become Lord, do not deny this notion”. The Frenzied Flame is nihilistic destruction. It's the idea of burning things down till nothing remains and nothing ever will grow again. This is the reason the Frenzy Flame’s status effect is called Madness. The path of the Frenzied Flame is the path of those without hope. This is best exemplified by how the Frenzied Flame ending features no dialogue. No one is left to tell the story. The Frenzied Flame’s permanent end to all things is in no way better than Goldmask’s path.
Lastly is Ranni, whose lunar motif and sorcery serve to contrast Goldmask’s solar motif and faith incantations. She describes her ending by saying, “Mine will be an order not of gold, but the stars and moon of the chill night. I would keep them far from the earth beneath our feet. As it is now, life, souls, and order, are bound tightly together, but I would have them at a great remove. And have the certainties of sight, emotion, faith, and touch… All become impossible. Which is why I would abandon this soil, with mine order”. What Ranni’s Age of Stars equates to is that Ranni will take the Elden Ring and leave to literally go to space and allow people to create a world without the Elden Ring binding the laws of reality. This would match her character, as Ranni’s main motivation besides her disillusionment with Radagon was breaking free of the Golden Order.
However, Ranni’s solution, while still better than most endings, is inferior to Goldmask’s ending. Firstly, in Elden Ring, the stars are sentient beings demonstrated by Radahn’s war against them and the battles against Fallingstar Beasts and Astel, Natural Born of the Void. These stars are very much hostile entities, and Ranni essentially brings the most powerful artifact in The Lands Between straight to them on a silver platter. Ranni also doesn’t address the Scarlet Rot or undead plague either. While Goldmask doesn’t inherently fix these, he at least provides a basis for The Lands Between to mount a resistance to these forces. Ranni leaves on a honeymoon for 1000 years, leaving ample time for these forces to fester.
We can compare Goldmask to another character that reflects him from Elden Ring’s DLC. Shadow of the Erdtreelearn features the demigod Miquella. Miquella was also a reformist, trying to make a new Age of Compassion. He attempted to reform the Golden Order and rid it of its atrocities imposed by Queen Marika, such as the abuse of minority groups of Omens, Misbegotten, and Albinurics. However, he ends up giving up his compassion and humanity along the way. His way of reform ends up being mental control of everyone to force them to become virtuous. Examples of this are how he manipulates his siblings Malenia, Mohg, and Radahn into working, killing, and ruining each other for his plan. Given how the game demonstrates this as a pure negative, it can be assumed that beings of power manipulating the lives of others is something both Goldmask and the game want the player to detest. Miquella chooses ultimately to become fickle in his path for a better world, so the game’s story teaches fickleness is incompatible with improvement.
Another important thing to examine is the spell Law of Regression, used to progress Goldmask’s questline. The Law of Regression is described as, “the pull of meaning; that all things yearn eternally to converge”. The Law of Regression incantation is important in how it is cast. Elden Ring divides its magic into two types, incantations and sorceries. Incantations require a high stat level of faith, while sorceries need intelligence. Law of Regression is unique in this regard, as it is an incantation that requires intelligence. It is a unity between faith and intelligence: an acquired wisdom. It is a rejection of both blind devotion and cold, logical lack of care. Given the spell's placement, it can be assumed this merging of the ideals of fundamentalism represents the individual Goldmask reforms himself into after his revelation about Radagon. He has rejected blind devotion, and through his character arc, Goldmask gains wisdom.
But what else can be gauged about Goldmask as a character, who he is, and what he represents? It might be hard to interpret considering his quiet demeanor, but Goldmask has a full arc with a lot to learn about him. Many misinterpret him as primarily a religious follower, when in actuality he more closely resembles ancient philosophers. His attire resembles the infamous Diogenes, a Greek who purposely lived in poverty and bathed in lakes. Goldmask’s mix of political, intellectual, and spiritual mix resembles many philosophers. The way Goldmask seeks government reform can be compared to many philosophers. His search for societal meaning within both the mathematical and the divine compares to the great thinkers of Ancient Greece. His tearing down of old establishments resembles Voltaire in The Enlightenment. Comparisons may also be made to Confucius in 500s BCE China. Confucius and his philosophies laid the foundations for Chinese law and morality for centuries to come, and Goldmask could very easily be similar in his motivations: creating a foundation of a peaceful society for a renewed existence in The Lands Between.
But is Goldmask’s vision one that would benefit the people of The Lands Between? The Golden Order was based on the subservience of people solely to Marika, so what prevents Goldmask from being this? Well, in the description for the Order Healing Incantation, it is noted, “Goldmask lamented what had become of the hunters. How easy it is for the learning and learnedness to be reduced to the raving of fanatics; all the good and the great wanted, in their foolishness, was an absolute evil to contend with. Does such a notion exist in the fundamentals of order?” The hunters are a group trying to wipe out Those Who Live in Death, the undead created when Godwyn was slain by Ranni. Goldmask detests how this group is treated. Looking at this from a mathematical point of view, it would be impossible for an order to become “perfect” if there are remaining groups separated like the Omens and Those Who Live in Death. If Goldmask desires a perfect order, he would desire all inhabitants of The Lands Between to be equal inside this order, not subservient to it. Given how he already dislikes how Those Who Live in Death are treated, and how he is already a heretic to the Golden Order this isn’t that much a logical leap, especially considering how the mistreatment of Omens, Misbegotten, Undead, and more were all caused in some way by the fickleness of Marika, Radagon, or Ranni. As another fundamentalist character, Miriel, says, “Heresy is not native to the world; it is but a contrivance. All things can be conjoined.” The divisions created by Marika and the zealotry around it are not a reflection of the natural rules of the world. The Elden Ring represents the laws of reality, but hatred is not a part of it. Goldmask sees this and grows as a person to accept this notion into his worldview.
However, there has yet to be a discussion on the lynchpin of this whole story. The revelation Radagon is Marika. This happens when casting the Law of Regression in front of a specific statue of Radagon, turning it into a statue of Marika. When telling Goldmask this, it has quite a bit of significance to him because he is a Golden Order Fundamentalist. He has studied the Law of Regression extensively, and knows what it represents: The convergence of all things into a unified truth. So a revelation in this manner has a whole lot more significance than learning it any other way. The reason why this prompts him to go to The Mountaintop of the Giants and become a heretic is that this proves Marika’s fickleness. Radagon and Marika were fundamentally opposed in life. Radagon was the creator of Golden Order Fundamentalism, promoting a deeper intellectual understanding of reality. Marika, as the founder of the Golden Order, promoted zealous worship of only herself and those she approved. Radagon was willing to marry Rennala of Raya Lucaria, incorporating the once heretical glintstone sorceries into the Order. Marika crusaded against all those who opposed her, even casting off two of her sons for being born as Omens. Finally, Marika was the one to shatter the Elden Ring and begin the Shattering, while Radagon desperately tries to repair it to this day. To Goldmask, them being the same person shows that one person in such positions of power could have such contradicting feelings. These massive issues and conflicts, affecting the lives of so many, are inflicted because of the shifting whim of one person. This revelation is what makes Goldmask reject the Golden Order because he now knows it is a sham institution dedicated to the beliefs and benefit of one person over the needs and improved lives of everyone.
But at last, why does Corhyn have his mental breakdown? Well, it's in actuality quite simple. Corhyn had not dedicated himself to the fundamentals of the Golden Order, but it's holism. He had transformed himself into a blind, vassal servant of its messages, no matter how rotten and defunct it was. So when Goldmask, someone he looks up to, begins to doubt that said holism, it breaks Corhyn. He falls back unto blind accusations of heresy. Using the Law of Regression as a metaphor, Corhyn only had faith, while Goldmask had both intelligence and faith.
In summary, Goldmask’s character throughout everything we’ve seen so far is that of someone who is at first devoted entirely to an institution but begins to find cracks in it. He sees how it encourages mistreatment and inequality. Goldmask witnesses how the Golden Order essentially failed to function as a society, and essentially retreating into blind faithful denial, he decides he's going to try to fix it. He rejects everything he knows, becoming a heretic, so he can find a philosophy based on wisdom, not blindness, that will truly bring benefit to everyone and a permanent solution to this world’s problems. In the end, Goldmask sacrifices himself to birth his rune, dying a hero so others he will never know can live a more perfect life. The brilliance of Goldmask is that behind his silly, silent, T-posing demeanor, behind the mask, is a philosophically rich character arc that is conveyed without a single spoken word on his behalf. The creativity in this choice takes what would have been an otherwise lacking quest and turns it into a genuinely enthralling and captivating questline. Ultimately the Age of Order ending is not going to be a perfect solution on a platter. Rather, it solidifies the laws of physics as law, promoting equality of all residents of The Lands Between, and preventing figures like Marika from taking absolute control. It provides a baseline to create our own improved world. Goldmask isn’t trying to force his definition of the world like Miquella and Marika, but rather giving himself a better one according to an objective, transcendental view of it. This is why I love Goldmask as a character, his writing is brilliantly complex allowing the player base to figure it out for themselves. Goldmask teaches to not be afraid of moving past previous beliefs to find new wisdom. Goldmask shows that someone is fickle and cruel, why should they be allowed to control our lives. Goldmask shows to not allow others to be unfairly treated. Even if cruel beings hold infinite power, that's no reason to not stand up for what's right. Lastly, Goldmask teaches us to relate to others and not exclude them, but rather join them, in Perfect Order.